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MIRACLES 


PAST    AND    PRESENT 


BY 


WILLIAM    MOUNTFOKD 


BOSTON 

FIELDS,    OS  GOOD,    &    CO. 
1870 


M  I* 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1870,  by 

WILLIAM     MOUNTFORD, 
in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


UNIVERSITY  PRESS:  WELCH,  BIGELOW,  &  Co., 
CAMBRIDGE. 


PREFACE. 

THE  subject  of  the  Supernatural  has  engaged  my 
attention,  as  a  student,  during  many  years.  It 
grew  upon  me  as  to  importance,  and  deepened  as  to 
interest,  while  I  was  at  Eome,  where,  like  St.  Paul, 
I  dwelt  two  years  in  my  own  hired  house.  This 
book,  which  I  offer  to  the  public,  was  written  simply 
because  the  times  seemed  to  be  asking  for  some  such 
work.  And,  as  nobody  else  was  answering  to  the  call 
of  the  times,  it  occurred  to  me  suddenly,  one  morning, 
some  sixteen  months  ago,  that  perhaps  I  might  myself 
be  not  quite  clear  of  the  summons.  Doubtless  a  bet 
ter  man  than  I  am  was  called  upon,  and  a  better  book 
was  asked  for  than  what  I  have  to  offer.  I  confess 
that  I  feel  so.  And  let  this  acknowledgment  be 
accepted  as  an  apology  for  such  a  venture  as  this  is 
upon  such  a  theme. 

Some  persons  have  wondered  that  I  should  have 
attempted  to  strengthen  my  argument  by  availing 
myself  of  the  phenomena  of  Spiritualism  as  evi 
dence  of  there  being  about  us  a  sphere  of  life  alto 
gether  different  from  this  of  nature,  and  for  which 
science  has  no  methods  nor  instruments,  and  for 
which,  therefore,  it  should  not  have  even  one  word 
of  denial,  or  even  of  doubt.  Those  phenomena  may 
be  called  ridiculous,  or  they  may  be  called  demoniac  ; 


41:!  3 62 


iv  PREFACE. 

but  at  least  and  certainly  they  are  cosmical.  And, 
indeed,  if  I  had  ignored  the  subject  of  Spiritualism 
because  of  its  being  unpopular,  how  could  I  ever  have 
borne  afterwards  to  think  of  Henry  More,  or  of  Rich- 
ard  Baxter,  or  of  John  Wesley,  or  his  dear  brother 
Charles  ?  Or  how  could  I  ever  again  have  consulted 
Ralph  Cudworth,  as  to  the  Intellectual  System  of  the 
Universe  ?  Or  how  could  I  have  remembered,  thence 
forth,  without  shame,  the  Christian  writers  from  Her 
nias  to  Augustine  ?  Or  how  could  I  have  endured  a 
life  among  books,  when  all  those,  with  the  greater 
names,  would  have  seemed  to  be  saying,  with  one 
voice,  "  Thou  shalt  not  bear  false  witness." 

Perhaps  I  ought  to  say  that  I  sympathize  with  the 
early  Christians  and  their  faith  as  to  the  Spirit,  rather 
than  with  anything  which  I  may  have  seen  or  heard 
in  Rome,  at  Whitsuntide.  St.  Chrysostom  says,  in 
one  of  his  homilies,  delivered  at  Constantinople,  prob 
ably  towards  the  end  of  the  fourth  century,  that  there 
had  been  used  to  be  a  pause,  during  the  service  in  the 
church,  wherein  for  persons  to  rise,  who  were  moved, 
by  the  Spirit,  and  that  that  space  had  been  closed, 
almost  within  his  own  time.  Also  after  saying  that 
many  of  the  miraculous  gifts  of  the  early  Church  had 
been  withdrawn,  lie  says  :  "  And  among  the  rest,  the 
gift  of  prayer,  which  was  then  distinguished  by  the 
name  of  the  Spirit.  And  he  that  had  this  gift  prayed 
for  the  whole  congregation.  Upon  which  account 
.the  apostle  gives  the  name  of  the  Spirit,  both  to  this 
gift  and  to  the  soul  that  was  endowed  with  it,  who 
made  intercession  with  groanings  unto  God,  asking 
of  God  such  things  as  were  of  general  use  and  ad- 


PEEFACE.  V 

vantage  to  the  whole  congregation ;  the  image  and 
symbol  of  which  now  is  the  deacon,  who  offers  up 
prayer  for  the  people."  Into  that  customary  ancient 
place  in  the  service,  that  deacon  ought  never  perhaps 
to  have  been  intruded.  For  even  when  there  was  in 
it  nothing  but  silence,  it  was  a  place  wherein  for  peo 
ple  to  wonder,  and  to  feel  conscious  of  there  having 
been  something  lost  or  suspended,  as  between  the 
Church  and  its  invisible  Head. 
•  However,  that  solemn  significant  pause,  which 
anciently  there  was  in  the  public  services  of  the 
Church,  would  not  have  been  endured  in  this  present 
century.  Of  a  certain  period  in  the  history  of  the 
Israelites,  it  is  written  that,  in  those  days,  "  There 
was  no  open  vision."  But  than  the  frankness  of  such 
a  statement  as  that,  spiritually,  there  is  nothing  which 
is  more  foreign  to  the  world  as  it  now  is ;  for  the 
world  to-day  thinks  that,  on  account  of  its  high  civil 
ization,  the  universe  must  surely  be  pledged  to  its  sup 
port,  in  every  way  which  is  possible.  And  it  thinks, 
also,  that  never  could  any  age  previously  have  been  as 
open  to  light  from  every  quarter  as  this  present  time 
is.  However,  the  way,  according  to  Chrysostom,  in 
which  the  Church  was  closed  against  the  Spirit,  during 
the  services  on  the  Lord's  day,  should  hint  for  us  that 
there  may  have  been  also  many  other  ways,  by  which 
Christians  may  have  been  discouraged  from  waiting  on 
God,  for  the  Spirit. 

Earlier  in  the  Church  than  Chrysostom,  by  some 
four  or  five  generations,  was  Origen,  and  he  wrote 
that  "  all  who  can  say  truly  that  they  have  risen  with 
Christ,  and  been  seated  with  him  in  the  kingdom  of 


vi  PREFACE. 

heaven,  live  always  in  Pentecostal  days."  And  as  to 
public  worship,  very  noteworthy  is  his  opinion ;  for  he 
says  that  the  special  advantage  of  public  worship  is, 
that  individuals  are  thereby  in  communion  with  those 
who  worship  in  the  Spirit,  and  in  the  presence  of  the 
Lord  and  the  holy  angels ;  and  he  adds,  "  and  as  I 
think  also  of  the  spirits  of  the  departed."  That  is  a 
thought  akin  to  the  age,  wherein  originated  the  phrase 
of  "  the  communion  of  saints." 

The  Church  of  the  Future  will  be,  of  course,  in  some 
degree,  a  continuation  of  the  Past ;  but  it  will  specially 
be,  earlier  or  later,  a  revival  of  the  early  Church,  at  its 
best.  And  this  book  has  been  written  and  is  pub 
lished  under  the  persuasion  that  the  voice  of  the  early 
Church  is  as  distinctly  audible  to-day  as  it  ever  was  ; 
and  that,  as  far  merely  as  the  miraculous  is  concerned, 
the  Scriptures,  when  fairly  considered,  at  this  present 
time,  are  as  credible  as  ever  they  were. 

W.  M. 

BOSTON,  February  22,  1870. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 
THE  ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM  OF  THE  PRESENT  AGE    .         .         1 

SCIENCE  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL 38 

MIRACLES  AND  DOCTRINE     .         .        .        ..-:.*  .71 

MIRACLES  AND  THE  BELIEVING  SPIRIT     .        ».       .        *  90 

THE  SCRIPTURES  AND  PNEUMATOLOGY          .        .        .  .110 

MIRACLES  AND  SCIENCE   .......  120 

THE  SPIRIT  AND  THE  PROPHETS  THEREOF    .        .        .  .131 

ANTI-SUPERNATURAL  MISUNDERSTANDINGS        .        .        .  144 

THE  LAST  ECSTATIC    .         .        .        ...        .  .     152 

MATTER  AND  SPIRIT                 .        .        .        .        .        .  166 

THE  OUTBURST  OF  SPIRITUALISM          .         .        .        .  .     184 

THOUGHTS  ON  SPIRITUALISM    ......  205 

A  MIRACLE  DEFINED  .         .        .        .        .        .        .  .     224 

MIRACLES  AS  SIGNS         .        .        .        ,        .        .        .  249 

MIRACLES  AND  THE  CREATIVE  SPIRIT 262 

MIRACLES  AND  HUMAN  NATURE      .        .        /               .  285 

MIRACLES  AND  PNEUMATOLOGY 309 


Vlll  CONTENTS. 

TUB  SPIRIT  AND  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT    ....  340 

THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  AND  THE  NEW 382 

THE  SPIRIT    .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .  399 

JESUS  AND  THE  SPIRIT       .      *.        .        .        .        .  .    430 

JESUS    AND    THE    RESURRECTION          '.           .            .            .           .  452 

THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  SPIRIT     .        .  478 


INDEX  TO  TEXTS  QUOTED     .        .        .        .        .        .        .505 

INDEX  OF  SUBJECTS         .        .        .  509 


MIRACLES  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


THE  ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM  OF  THE 
PRESENT  AGE. 

IT  is  proposed  to  consider  the  subject  of  miracles  as 
connected  with  Christianity.  And  perhaps  than 
this  there  is  no  religious  topic  which  has  been  more 
variously  and  strangely  treated,  during  the  last  century. 
And  this  is  saying  a  great  deal.  For  how  has  it  fared 
with  Christianity,  and  even  at  the  hands  of  those,  some 
times,  by  whom  it  has  been  accounted  as  the  Tree  of 
Life  ?  Often,  among  other  anomalous  doings,  it  has 
been  treated  as  though  a  gardener  should  take  up  a 
tree  and  turn  it  about,  to  humor  every  change  of  wind 
Upon  it ;  and  as  though,  to  prove  it  to  be  a  living  thing, 
he  should  lay  bare  its  roots  for  every  questioner,  and 
even  paint  them,  to  make  them  more  seemly. 

Miracles  are  the  possibilities  of  a  miracle-bearing 
tree ;  but  commonly  they  are  regarded  as  though  they 
were  some  arbitrary  manufacture.  In  the  New  Testa 
ment  they  are  simply  called  "  signs  and  wonders " ; 
but  in  this  age,  among  both  believers  and  unbelievers, 
it  is  agreed  that  they  are  suspensions  of  the  laws  of  na 
ture,  or  else  are  nothing.  Miracles  presuppose  the  ex 
istence  of  a  spiritual  world  containing  spiritual  agents 
and  spiritual  forces ;  with  laws  peculiar  to  it,  and  with 


ANTl-SUPERNATURALISM 


some  laws  also  capable  of  intertwining  and  inosculat 
ing  with  some  of  the  laws  of  man's  nature  and  of  the 
material  world.  And  yet  often,  by  even  the  advocates 
of  their  reality,  miracles  are  argued  wholly  and  simply 
as  material  occurrences,  and  quite  apart  from  the  phi 
losophy  of  their  nature,  and,  indeed,  as  though  there 
were  really  no  such  philosophy  known.  And  this  is 
because  of  the  spirit  of  the  age,  which  is  so  strong  in 
us  all.  For  it  is  no  matter  what  a  man  may  be, 
whether  philosopher,  theologian,  or  anything  else,  al 
most  inevdtably  in  some  way  or  other,  the  spirit  of 
the  age  will  have  its  say  through  him,  and  pervert,  if 
not  quench,  his  meaning. 

No  doubt,  things  have  often  been  credited  as  mirac 
ulous  which  were  no  miracles  at  all.  But  the  precise 
opposite  of  credulity  is  not  wisdom,  always.  And  if 
it  be  said  that  it  is  only  at  Naples  that  the  blood  of 
St.  Januarius  will  liquefy,  it  may  be  answered  that 
there  has  also  been  such  a  place  as  that  in  it,  nei 
ther  would  "  they  be  persuaded,  though  one  rose  from 
the  dead."  And  to-day  there  are  eminent  places, 
where  men  hold  that  neither  their  own  eyes,  nor  the 
eyes  of  all  other  persons,  are  to  be  trusted  for  a  mira 
cle,  or,  as  they  would  say,  for  anything  different  from 
the  laws  of  nature.  But,  with  all  their  scepticism, 
these  sceptics  do  not  remember  that  a  law  of  nature 
may  be  one  thing,  and  their  notion  of  that  law  be 
something  else,  or  something  a  little  different.  But, 
indeed,  when  incredulity  becomes  as  intense  as  that,  it 
is  self-confounded,  self-confuted,  ev^n  though  it  should 
be  in  regard  to  such  a  miracle  as  that  which  happened, 
when  the  axe-head  fell  into  the  water,  and  Elisha  "  cut 


OF   THE   PRESENT   AGE.  3 

down  a  stick  and  cast  it  in  thither,  and  the  iron  did 
swim."  For,  if  a  man  cannot  trust  his  eyes  and  ears, 
how  can  he  rely  on  his  doubts  ?  And  how  does  he 
know  but  doubting  his  senses  may  be  an  unworthy, 
untrustworthy  act,  and  even  may,  perhaps,  be  a  mere 
nervous  boggling  ?  And  how  should  even  a  materialist 
trust  the  wisdom  which  has  been  filtered  for  him,  as  he 
thinks,  from  outside,  through  his  eyes  and  ears,  if  he 
cannot  trust  his  eyes  and  ears  themselves  ?  But,  in 
the  spirit  of  his  times  or  neighborhood,  a  man  will 
think  and  hold  what,  under  other  influences,  would 
have  been  for  him  only  a  speculative,  tentative  posi 
tion.  And  because  of  its  being  in  us  and  of  us,  the 
spirit  of  the  age  is  the  last  thing  to  be  suspected,  as 
vitiating  sound  judgment. 

It  is  in  this  spirit  of  the  time  to  judge  of  everything 
by  uniformity,  whether  as  regards  the  world  or  man 
kind.  And  so,  from  what  he  understands  to  be  the 
uniformity  of  the  laws  of  nature,  a  man  of  the  time 
thinks  himself  competent  to  check  the  report  of  the 
past,  and  decide  that  there  never  could  have  been  wa 
ter  changed  into  wine,  or  a  demon  exorcised,  because 
at  this  present  time  water  is  never  seen  changing  into 
wine,  nor  a  demon  known  to  be  dispossessed  of  his  cor 
poral  lodgings.  And  because  of  what  he  fancies  must 
be  the  uniformity  of  human  nature,  this  man  of  the 
time  thinks,  too,  that  from  himself  he  knows  of  every 
body  else,  as  to  what  they  can  have  seen  or  cannot 
have  seen ;  can  have  heard  or  cannot  have  heard ;  can 
have  felt  or  cannot  have  felt ;  and  in  the  same  way,  as 
differing  from  himself,  he  is  certain  that  in  the  past 
they  must  all  have  been  loose  thinkers ;  and  not  the 


4  THE   ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM 

Jews  only,  but  the  Greeks  and  Romans  too,  and  even 
Socrates  and  Plato,  because  of  their  having  reasoned 
about  things  which  he  himself  has  never  met  with, 
and  which,  if  he  did  meet,  he  would  never  believe 
his  own  eyes  about. 

It  is  by  availing  himself  of  this  temper  of  the  times 
that  largely  Ernest  Renan  gets  his  strength  as  a  con 
troversialist  ;  for  what  he  has  to  say  on  the  subject 
of  miracles  would  have  been  but  feeble  talk  anywhere, 
one  or  two  hundred  years  ago,  and  would  sound  but 
inanely  even  to-day,  in  such  regions  as  are  clear  away 
from  the  influence  of  Paris  and  London.  "  A  miracle 
is  not  to  be  regarded,  because  it  never  could  have  hap 
pened  ;  and  because  even  if,  perchance,  it  had  hap 
pened,  there  never  could  have  been  any  people  who 
could  have  been  believed  about  it."  This,  in  form,  is 
the  argument  of  Renan.  But,  of  course,  it  is  good  only 
for  people  of  that  way  of  thinking,  only  for  persons 
sensitive  to  the  spirit  of  the  age,  and  who  are  ready  to 
add,  without  another  word,  "  And  so  I  think,  because 
so  I  am  sure." 

The  following  quotation  is  from  the  introductory 
chapter  to  "  The  Apostles,"  by  Ernest  Renan :  "  The 
first  twelve  chapters  of  the  Acts  are  a  tissue  of  mira 
cles.  It  is  an  absolute  rule  in  criticism  to  deny  a 
place  in  history  to  narratives  of  miraculous  circum 
stances  ;  nor  is  this  owing  to  a  metaphysical  system, 
for  it  is  simply  the  dictation  of  observation.  Such 
facts  have  never  been  really  proved.  All  the  pretended 
miracles  near  enough  to  be  examined  are  referable  to 
illusion  or  imposture.  If  a  single  miracle  had  ever 
been  proved,  we  could  not  reject  in  a  mass  all  those  of 


OF   THE  PRESENT   AGE.  5 

ancient  history ;  for,  admitting  that  very  many  of  these 
last  were  false,  we  might  still  believe  that  some  of 
them  were  true.  But  it  is  not  so.  Discussion  and 
examination  are  fatal  to  miracles.  Are  we  not,  then, 
authorized  in  believing  that  those  miracles  which  date 
many  centuries  back,  and  regarding  which  there  are 
no  means  of  forming  a  contradictory  debate,  are  also 
without  reality  ?  In  other  words,  miracles  only  exist 
when  people  believe  in  them.  The  supernatural  is  but 
another  word  for  faith.  Catholicism,  in  maintaining 
that  it  yet  possesses  miraculous  power,  subjects  itself 
to  the  influence  of  this  law.  The  miracles  of  which  it 
boasts  never  occur  where  they  would  be  most  effective. 
Why  should  not  such  a  convincing  proof  be  brought 
more  prominently  forward  ?  A  miracle  at  Paris,  for 
instance,  before  experienced  savans,  would  put  an  end 
to  all  doubt.  But,  alas  !  such  a  thing  never  happens." 
But,  now,  oracular  though  this  might  be,  judged  by  the 
manner  in  which  it  has  been  bowed  to,  what  is  there 
in  it  all  more  than  the  mere  sceptical  spirit  of  the 
age  ?  What  does  it  do  more  than  simply  tickle  the 
humor  of  the  time  ?  Psychologically,  it  is  a  curious 
passage,  because  the  sweep  of  its  intention  is  so  wide  ; 
while  the  wording  of  it  is  so  like  the  unconscious,  in 
nocent  expression  of  a  child.  It  is  as  though  a  boy, 
as  the  easier  way  of  settling  with  a  problem  in  mathe 
matics,  should  say :  "  There  is  nothing  in  it.  There 
never  was  anything  learned  from  that  direction.  O 
my  master,  all  the  best  boys  have  looked  at  it,  and  say 
that  there  is  nothing  in  it,  —  nothing  at  all.  And  so, 
now,  how  can  there  be  ?  And,  please,  even  if  it  be 
true,  it  cannot  really  be  unless  we  let  it  be."  But 


6  THE  ANTI-SUPERNATUEALISM 

here  it  may  be  asked,  whether  it  is  likely  that  Ernest 
Kenan,  as  a  boy,  ever  talked  in  that  manner  ;  and  to 
this  it  may  be  answered,  that  it  is  very  unlikely,  con 
sidering  that  he  was  born  in  Brittany.  And  it  is  just 
as  unlikely,  too,  that  he  could  ever  have  written  the 
preceding  quotation  from  one  of  his  works,  but  for  his 
education,  direct  and  indirect.  For  he  was  born  in 
Brittany,  a  country  of  simple,  fervent,  unquestioning 
faith  as  to  the  Church.  Thence  he  was  carried  to  Par 
is,  and  placed  in  a  primary  theological  school,  whence 
he  was  passed  on  to  a  similar  school  elsewhere.  Hav 
ing  finished  with  the  latter  school,  he  became  a  resident 
in  the  Seminary  of  St.  Sulpice,  which,  indeed,  inside, 
is  wholly  ordered  by  members  of  the  Society  of  Jesus, 
but  on  the  outside  is  pressed  upon  by  the  light,  sceptical, 
and  anti- Christian  air  of  Paris.  Ernest  Ptenan  had  been 
brought  up  like  a  child  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  then 
found  himself,  as  a  young  man,  where,  with  a  few  steps 
out  of  doors,  he  was  in  the  atmosphere  of  Paris  and 
under  the  influence  of  the  Sorbonne.  And  now,  with 
all  this,  was  it  not  natural  that  Renan  should  have 
become  a  Eationalistic  author  instead  of  a  Catholic 
priest  ?  And  because  of  his  being  a  simple,  earnest, 
intellectual  man,  was  it  not  all  the  more  natural  still, 
that,  by  contrast  with  the  air  of  St.  Sulpice,  he  should 
mistake  for  the  spirit  of  truth  itself  what  was  but  the 
spirit  of  the  age  manifesting  itself  through  a  highly 
educated  class,  in  a  city  singularly  self-centred  and 
self-sufficient  ? 

But,  says  the  critic  here  criticised,  "  A  miracle  at 
Paris  before  experienced  savans  !  "  Elsewhere,  too,  he 
explains  more  exactly  what  would  suit  him  as  to  a 


OF   THE  PRESENT   AGE.  7 

miracle  ;  that  it  should  be  wrought  under  conditions  as 
to  time  and  place,  in  a  hall,  and  before  a  commission 
of  physiologists,  chemists,  physicians,  and  critics  ;  and 
that  when  it  had  been  done  once,  it  should,  on  request, 
be  repeated.  And  no  doubt,  to  the  writer,  this  ap 
peared  to  be  a  very  fair  way  of  dealing  with  miraculous 
pretensions  ;  and  no  doubt,  too,  of  his  most  emphatic 
opponents,  there  are  many  to  whom,  in  their  secret 
thought,  it  would  be  a  puzzle,  if  such  a  proposition  had 
been  made  to  Jesus  at  Jerusalem,  why  it  should  not 
have  been  accepted  at  once  for  the  market-place,  or 
the  court  of  the  temple.  For  Kenan  is  simply  strong 
in  that  way  of  looking  at  things,  which  is  characteris 
tic  of  this  present  age,  and  which  commonly  is  called 
sceptical,  but  which,  also,  sometimes  is  called  practical 
and  even  business-like.  Not  jocosely,  but  in  all  seri 
ousness,  every  now  and  then  are  put  forth  and  read  in 
vitations  to  the  miraculous  such  as  that  which  Ernest 
Renan  makes.  One  man  writes  in  abstract,  scientific 
terms,  and  another  in  plain  English  ;  but  both  one  and 
the  other  mean  the  same  thing.  "  Let  miracles  come 
to  me  in  my  study,  and  show  themselves  inside  of  my 
crucible,  while  my  friends  are  all  standing  round,  and 
at  the  moment  exactly  when  it  shall  be  said  that 
we  are  all  ready,  and  then  I  will  believe ;  though  of 
course,  even  then,  I  should  not  be  absolutely  forced  to, 
but  still  I  should,  I  think.  And  now  what  do  you 
say  to  that  ? "  And  there  really  is  nothing  to  say  to  it. 
Martin  Luther,  indeed,  said  once  what  probably  he 
would  have  remarked  again,  if  he  had  heard  this  scien 
tific,  common-sense  proposal,  that  for  certain,  some 
times,  over  some  of  his  creatures  God  Almighty  must 
laugh. 


8  THE   ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM 

But  now,  as  to  miracles,  it  is  not  pretended  that 
they  are  absolutely  at  the  ordering  of  any  man  as  to 
time  and  place.  But,  indeed,  is  it  so  that  science  treats 
a  subject,  even  less  foreign  to  its  own  domain  than 
miracles  ? 

Are  earthquakes,  as  reports,  accounted  incredible,  as 
not  occurring  at  a  time  and  a  place  known  beforehand, 
and  submissive  to  the  directions  of  men  with  clocks 
and  spirit-levels,  and  with  magnetic  and  other  ma 
chines  all  ready  for  use  ?  And,  indeed,  a  miracle  com 
ing  to  order  would  scarcely  be  a  miracle.  For,  coming 
to  order  patiently,  punctually,  and  as  a  scientific  cer 
tainty,  it  would  by  that  very  fact  have  parted  probably 
with  something  essential  to  its  nature  as  commonly 
understood. 

But  really  a  Kamtschatkan,  unmitigated  and  sim 
ple,  arguing  with  Ernest  Renan  on  Sanscrit,  could  not 
show  himself  more  insensible  as  to  the  laws  of  philol 
ogy  than  Eenan  shows  himself  on  the  subject  of  mir 
acles  ;  for  he  is  utterly  unconscious,  apparently,  of 
there  being  any  philosophy  connected  with  them,  and 
of  there  being  laws  as  to  miracles,  known  more  or  less 
by  some  men  in  all  ages,  and  as  certain  as  gravitation. 

But  it  may  be  asked  how  this  can  be,  Renan  being  a 
very  sensible  writer.  And  so  a  man  may  write  well 
on  geometry,  and  yet  show  himself  to  be  very  stolid 
as  to  poetry,  and  even  also  as  to  those  thoughts  akin 
to  the  spiritual  universe,  which  are  suggested  by  the 
strange  properties  of  numbers,  or  which  come  in  upon 
the  mind,  like  corollaries  on  the  demonstration  of  cer 
tain  problems.  Thus,  even  by  his  constitution,  Renan 
may  have  a  strong,  keen,  serviceable,  excellent  sense 


OF   THE   PRESENT   AGE.  9 

of  the  life  which  Jesus  lived  as  other  men  live,  and 
yet  be  utterly  insensible  to  the  life  of  Jesus  the  Christ, 
as  fed  by  the  Spirit,  and  going  forth  in  miracles,  and 
incapable  of  seeing  corruption.  But,  indeed,  for  his 
manner  of  writing  the  spirit  of  his  age  abundantly  ac 
counts,  just  as  it  accounts  for  some  of  the  more  fervent 
of  his  admirers,  who  like  in  his  writings  what  is  weak 
est,  as  much  as  they  do  what  is  best. 

Of  what  use,  it  is  asked,  can  miracles  ever  have  been 
among  people  not  fit  to  be  believed  about  them,  such 
as  were  the  people  of  old  time  and  the  people  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  such  as  are  all  the  people  of  the 
provinces  of  France,  and  men  of  the  people  and  men 
of  the  world  everywhere  ?  For,  as  Eenan  says,  neither 
men  of  the  world  nor  men  of  the  people  are  "  capable 
of  establishing  the  miraculous  character  of  an  act." 
An  act  is  what  he  says,  any  act,  any  miraculous  act, 
and  not  merely  some  very  recondite  thing  hard  to  no 
tice.  This  is  one  of  those  general  statements  which 
often  pass  unchallenged,  because  nobody  thinks  that 
they  can  mean  him ;  but  it  is  not,  therefore,  the  less 
mischievous.  Perhaps  there  is  not  a  man  of  the  world 
who  alloAvs  this  opinion,  as  he  reads  it,  but  thinks, 
though  he  is  no  physician  and  has  never  been  publicly 
recognized  as  critic,  chemist,  or  physiologist,  that  some 
how,  certainly,  he  himself  must  have  science  and  art 
enough,  for  being  one  of  Kenan's  judges  of  the  miracu 
lous,  and  must  have  been  intended,  indeed,  to  be  includ 
ed  amongst  them.  Physicians,  physiologists,  men  of 
criticism  and  chemistry,  men  of  science,  the  only  com 
petent  judges  as  to  miracles !  For  some  conceivable 
miracles  they  might  be  ;  but  for  some  others  detective 
1* 


10  THE  ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM 

policemen  would  be  far  better  witnesses.  And,  for  still 
some  other  miracles,  that  men  of  the  world,  as  judges, 
are  inferior  to  chemists,  —  this  is  a  sentiment  which 
can  come  only  from  scientific  folly,  or  from  much  learn 
ing  gone  mad.  As  to  whether  the  true  magnetic  pole 
could  be  made  to  swerve  for  a  moment  in  the  heavens, 
professional  men  would  be  the  better  and  perhaps  the 
only  proper  judges.  But  men  of  the  people  and  men 
of  the  world  are  as  good  judges  as  men  of  science  on 
a  miracle  like  this,  which  occurred  in  the  wilderness  : 
"  His  disciples  say  unto  him,  Whence  should  we  have 
so  much  bread  in  the  wilderness  as  to  fill  so  great  a 
multitude  ?  And  Jesus  saith  unto  them,  How  many 
loaves  have  ye  ?  And  they  said,  Seven,  and  a  few  little 
fishes.  And  he  commanded  the  multitude  to  sit  down 
on  the  ground.  And  he  took  the  seven  loaves  and  the 
fishes,  and  gave  thanks  and  break  them,  and  gave  to 
his  disciples,  and  the  disciples  to  the  multitude.  And 
they  did  all  eat  and  were  filled ;  and  they  took  up  of 
the  broken  meat  that  was  left  seven  baskets  full.  And 
they  that  did  eat  were  five  thousand  men,  beside  wo 
men  and  children." 

But  now  what  a  want  of  taste  and  feeling  it  seems 
not  to  pause  here  for  a  little  while,  after  such  a  glimpse 
into  Galilee  at  that  .wonderful  time.  But  it  is  not 
permitted,  as  the  world  now  is,  to  those  who  know  it 
theologically.  For  in  comes,  on  the  mind,  the  recol 
lection  of  David  F.  Strauss,  the  famous  writer  on  the 
Gospels,  who  says  that  he  himself  cannot  believe  in  a 
miracle  until  he  has  had  a  solution  of  the  philosophi 
cal  views  which  he  entertains  against  the  possibility 
of  such  a  thing.  So  that  with  him,  even  seeing  would 


OF   THE  PRESENT  AGE.  11 

not  be  believing,  unless,  by  good  luck,  there  were  some 
sophist  standing  by,  more  cunning  than  himself,  who 
could  unloose  for  him,  in  his  mind,  the  knots  of  his 
own  tying.  Any  man,  down  in  the  depths  of  learning, 
or  up  on  the  heights  of  science,  in  a  difficulty  of  that 
kind,  is  to  be  pitied,  because  of  the  pains  which  he  must 
have  taken  before  he  could  have  got  there  in  his  senses. 
But  now  for  David  F.  Strauss  himself  pity  is  not  the 
word,  but  sympathy.  And  the  sympathy  to  be  felt  for 
him  is  profound,  and  as  though  for  a  pioneer  in  the 
grand  advance  of  civilization,  who  had  got  bewildered 
in  a  thicket,  and  at  whose  position  only  they  can  laugh 
who  cannot  even  faintly  conjecture  what  it  is  to  try 
a  step  forwards  in  theology  under  religious  responsi 
bility.  Still,  however,  it  is  a  certainty  that  such  an 
avowal  as  that  which  Strauss  makes  of  himself,  is  the 
self-exposure  of  "  philosophy  falsely  so  called." 

And  now  let  us  consider  the  arguments  against  the 
supernatural  from  the  uniformity  of  human  nature. 
At  present  almost  everybody  feels  the  force  of  it  more 
or  less,  and  not  the  less  unduly  often  because  uncon 
sciously.  But,  as  a  dogmatic  position,  it  is  commonly 
assumed  by  persons  belonging  to  two  very  different 
classes,  —  by  studious,  scholarly  men,  and  by  people 
who  call  themselves  self-made  men,  and  who  boast 
themselves  of  having  been  sharpened  by  collisions 
with  their  fellows.  Human  nature,  it  is  supposed,  is 
everywhere  and  always  the  same,  and  as  uniform  as  a 
law  of  nature ;  so  as  that  everybody  knows  of  him 
self  whether  a  spirit  has  ever  been  seen  anywhere,  or 
a  vision  ever  been  had,  or  a  miraculous  cure  ever  been 
experienced.  Now  certainly  human  nature  is  every- 


12  THE  ANTI-SUPERNATURAL1SM 

where  human.  But  then  what  is  this  humanity  ? 
For,  before  beginning  to  deny  from  it  as  a  ground,  it 
should  be  absolutely  certain  how  far  the  ground  reach 
es.  Plainly,  we  are  not  all  the  equals  of  Plato,  or  Sol 
omon,  or  Newton.  And  if,  now  and  then,  individuals 
have  proclaimed  themselves  sensitive  to  a  world  of 
spirit,  it  would  hardly  seem  to  be  a  greater  variation 
in  human  nature  than  what  is  common  in  every  city, 
where  one  man  wallows  in  the  mire  of  sensuality, 
while  another  feeds  on  fruits  ripened  on  the  topmost 
boughs  of  the  tree  of  knowledge.  And  certainly  a  seer 
does  not  vary  from  a  Troglodyte  more  than  Plato  does  ; 
and  so  why  should  he  not  be  believed  in,  on  good  evi 
dence  as  to  his  character  ? 

But,  indeed,  for  those  who  hold  that  man  is  body 
and  spirit,  why  should  it  be  incredible  that  there 
should  be  varieties  of  spiritual  experience  among  men, 
considering  that  some  men  do  nothing  but  live  to  the 
body,  while  others  live  earnestly  to  the  spirit  ? 

If  there  be  a  spirit  in  man,  and  a  spirit  with  the 
powers  of  a  spirit,  why  should  it  be  reckoned  a  thing 
impossible,  that  it  should  make  itself  more  distinctly 
felt  in  one  man  than  another  ?  And  why  should  it 
be  beyond  belief  or  expectation  even  that,  now  and 
then,  there  might  be  a  person  with  whom  some  faculty 
of  the  spirit  should  be  more  than  dormantly  alive  ?  — 
the  eye  for  spirits  even,  if  any  should  be  near ;  the  ear 
for  more  than  mortal  sounds ;  and  the  spiritual  under 
standing  for  a  prompting  other  than  that  of  flesh  and 
blood  ?  But  the  fact  is  that  the  anti-supernaturalism 
of  our  times  is  the  result  of  thought  akin  to  materi 
alism  ;  and  from  this  effect  of  materialism  very  few 


OF  THE   PRESENT   AGE.  13 

persons  are  wholly  exempt.  For  even  the  partisans 
of  a  spiritual  theology  argue  it  commonly  like  material 
ists,  —  argue  it  as  though  it  were  some  field  of  nature, 
reaching  out  of  sight,  indeed,  but  to  be  pronounced 
upon,  from  familiar  analogies.  Even  those  who  rank 
themselves  farthest  from  the  professors  of  materialism, 
show  themselves  to  be  inwardly  affected  by  it,  by 
their  unwillingness  to  have  spirit  defined  in  any  other 
way  than  negatively.  They  say  that  spirit  is  not  sub 
stance  because  matter  is  substantial ;  that  spirit  can 
not  be  known  of  by  men  because,  though  they  may  be 
spirits  themselves,  they  can  learn  only  through  the  five 
senses ;  and  that  spirit  cannot  act  upon  matter  be 
cause  it  cannot  touch  it,  from  the  want  of  some  prop 
erty  in  common  with  it.  So  that,  for  some  fervent  disci 
ples  of  a  spiritual  philosophy,  spirit  is  not  much  more 
than  the  indefinable.  The  universality  of  the  materi 
alism  of  the  age  is  illustrated  by  the  manner  in  which 
even  immaterialists  agree  with  their  opposites  on  some 
most  important  points  of  denial  and  disbelief.  Some 
of  them  talk  reverentially  of  George  Fox  and  his  doc 
trine  and  experience  of  the  Spirit ;  but  they  resolutely 
ignore  all  the  signs  and  wonders  in  his  history,  which 
by  Fox  himself  are  ascribed  to  the  Spirit.  Others  of 
them  hold  the  writings  of  Jacob  Boehme  like  oracles 
of  spirituality,  while  they  treat  like  an  idle,  unmeaning 
preface,  the  assertion  prefixed  to  one  of  them,  that  it 
was  not  written  out  of  his  mind,  but  from  thoughts 
which  forced  an  utterance  through  him  from  the  Spir 
it.  And  still  others  of  them  affect  Plotinus  as  a  great 
spiritual  teacher ;  but  they  shut  their  eyes  on  the  in 
tercourse  with  spirits  which  he  held,  and  on  his  expe 
riences  of  the  ecstatic  state. 


14  THE   ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM 

A  man  may  hold  the  creed  of  his  sect  or  party  ever 
so  firmly,  but  yet  largely  his  thought  will  be  governed 
by  what  he  can  never  quite  escape  from,  —  the  spirit 
of  his  age.  And  narratives  or  doctrines  of  the  super 
natural,  in  a  time  like  this,  can  be,  at  the  best,  only 
just  not  rejected.  At  present,  in  meditative  stillness, 
spiritual  perception  may  be  attained  ;  but  out  in  the 
world,  almost  it  quite  fails  at  once,  from  being  stifled 
by  the  atmosphere  of  the  world's  common  thought. 

True,  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of  clergymen 
preach  the  supernatural,  and  millions  of  persons,  week 
by  week,  sit  and  hear  them.  But  this  is  not  evidence 
of  faith  any  more  than  the  discords,  deceits,  and  dis 
content,  the  treacheries,  sensualities,  and  blasphemies 
of  Monday  are  proofs  of  what  was  preached  and  ac 
quiesced  in  on  Sunday.  Perhaps  nearly  every  learned 
and  thoughtful  clergyman  might  express  himself  in 
something  like  this  manner :  "  I  am  one  of  His  witness 
es  for  these  things.  I  see  that  they  were  so  and  are 
so.  And  yet,  strange  to  say,  I  cannot  preach  as  I  feel ; 
or  rather  I  cannot  make  my  hearers  feel  what  I  wish 
to  preach.  And  the  sermon  which  I  thought  was  full 
of  the  arrows  of  the  Lord  hits  no  one  where  I  aim,  and 
is  indeed  no  more  than  the  '  lovely  song  of  one  that 
hath  a  pleasant  voice,  and  can  play  well  on  an  instru 
ment.'  "  And,  more  than  that,  the  sermon  does  not 
sound  like  the  same  thing,  even  to  himself.  And  the 
words  which,  while  they  were  meditated  in  secret, 
were  fraught  with  the  Spirit,  being  uttered  in  public, 
do  not  reach  the  spiritual  man,  but  only  the  ear  of  the 
natural  man,  and  are  powerless  except  as  they  may 
chance  to  be  approved  by  the  intellect  testing  them  by 


OF  THE   PRESENT   AGE.  15 

logic,  rhetoric,  history,  and  some  of  the  natural  sensibil 
ities.  And  the  reason  is  very  simple,  for  the  atmos 
phere  of  the  world  and  of  a  worldly  church  is  not  that 
of  a  Christian  study,  with  its  windows  opening  towards 
Jerusalem.  And  even  a  preacher  may  be  really  "  in 
the  Spirit  on  the  Lord's  day " ;  but  he  must  be  very 
happily  constituted  if  he  does  not  find  that,  with  cross 
ing  the  street,  on  his  way  to  the  pulpit,  the  Spirit  has 
been  more  or  less  quenched  in  him.  And,  from  ex 
changing  looks  with  his  hearers,  he  is  conscious  that  he 
is  not  quite  what  he  was  while  in  the  presence  of  the 
fathers,  and  in  sympathy  with  Jeremy  Taylor,  and  in 
fellowship  with  Baxter  and  Doddridge,  and  in  the  com 
munion  of  the  saints.  Partly  his  rationalistic  dogmas 
and  forms  of  speech  do  not  admit  fully  of  either  the 
doctrines  or  the  utterance  of  the  Spirit ;  and  partly, 
what  utterance  of  the  Spirit  his  words  suffice  for,  often 
his  hearers  are  not  capable  of  receiving,  because  in 
them  the  sense  of  the  supernatural  is  very  commonly 
almost  quite  suspended  ;  and  so  "  they  seeing,  see  not ; 
and  hearing,  they  hear  not;  neither  do  they  under 
stand."  And  with  the  people  as  well  as  the  preacher 
this  is  not  so  much  their  fault  as  their  misfortune,  — 
the  tendency  of  the  time  which  they  belong  to,  and 
which  it  is  not  possible  to  quite  escape.  And  this 
tendency,  this  spirit  of  the  age,  is  not  of  yesterday 
merely,  but  of  previous  ages.  It  is  an  effect  of  the 
manner,  in  which  the  souls  of  men  have  been  stupefied 
by  the  astounding  disclosures  of  science.  It  results, 
also,  from  the  fact  that  the  ordinary  modes  of  religious 
administration  are  what  have  been  persisted  in,  with 
out  the  slightest  modification,  since  the  days  when 


16  THE   ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM 

they  were  the  agony  of  George  Fox's  soul,  and  the 
scorn  of  Eobert  Barclay's  logic  ;  and  in  part,  also,  it  is 
a  consequence  of  altered  ways  of  life,  the  growth  of 
luxury,  the  increasing  subordination  of  the  individual 
to  the  body  politic,  and  the  predominance  of  the  pecu 
liar  influences  of  the  city  over  those  of  the  country. 

Perhaps  never  before  has  there  been  as  much  unbe 
lief,  innocent  in  its  origin,  as  there  is  at  present.  In 
former  ages  widely  prevalent  unbelief  was  caused  by 
moral  corruption.  But  the  peculiar  scepticism  of  the 
present  age  is  not  as  desperate  as  that.  It  is  not 
mainly  of  the  heart,  and  thus  the  issues  of  life  are  not 
thereby  corrupted,  as  they  otherwise  might  be.  And 
so  at  present,  in  their  inmost  hearts,  men  have  really 
more  faith  than  they  themselves  know  of.  And  often 
it  is  observed  that,  apparently,  while  sickness  thins 
away  the  body,  there  is  also  a  mental  incrustation 
which  gives  way  too,  and  through  which  the  soul 
seems  to  look  out  with  a  sweet  surprise,  and  a  glad 
sense  of  the  God  who  is  nearer  than  was  thought.  If 
it  may  be  so  expressed,  it  is  for  the  comfort  of  the 
strong  more  than  even  of  the  dying  that  faith  at  the 
present  day  needs  to  be  strengthened.  What  general 
uneasiness  there  is  theologically !  Every  church  is 
opposed  to  every  other  church,  and  yet  also  is  divided 
against  itself.  And  the  same  want  of  faith,  or  satisfy 
ing  conviction,  is  largely  evident  in  individuals.  Vast 
numbers  simply  acquiesce  in  their  creeds,  and  tim 
idly  recoil  from  even  learning  about  them.  And  how 
often  it  is  to  be  seen,  that  if  an  individual  tries  to 
think  for  himself,  he  is  at  one  time  zealous  for  cere 
monies,  and  at  another  time  resolute  against  them,  as 


OF  THE  PRESENT   AGE.  17 

embarrassing  crutches  ;  and  is  a  believer  in  mainly  one 
article  of  his  creed  one  year,  and  in  another  article  an 
other  year.  And  from  those  hearts  which  best  know 
themselves,  what  an  unceasing  prayer  must  be  rising 
from  closet  to  closet,  from  church  to  church,  from  town 
to  town,  all  round  the  world,  "  Lord,  I  believe  ;  help 
thou  mine  unbelief  "  !  The  unbelief  which  is  specially 
of  this  age  is  so  far  from  being  atheistic  that  it  even 
prays  ;  for  such  atheism  as  is  possible  now,  is  what 
really  may  be  confuted  within  the  range  of  the  mind 
of  a  child.  Indeed,  the  unbelief  of  our  time  is  mainly 
anti-supernaturalism,  or  more  precisely,  perhaps,  anti- 
spiritualism.  It  is  not,  however,  a  denial  of  the  angels 
any  more  than  of  God.  But  exactly  it  denies  that 
man,  as  a  class  of  creatures  occupying  that  particular 
place  in  the  universe  which  is  the  kingdom  of  nature, 
is  liable  to  be  visited  by  any  other  creatures,  whether 
higher  or  lower,  not  also  denizens  of  nature.  It  denies, 
too,  that  there  are  any  other  avenues  to  the  human 
mind  than  what  the  anatomist  can  indicate  with  his 
scalpel ;  and,  therefore,  it  denies  that  the  human  spirit 
is  open  to  be  acted  upon  by  the  Holy  Ghost  as  in  the 
early  days  of  Christianity ;  and  denies,  also,  that  men 
are  ever  approachable  in  any  way,  or  for  any  purpose 
whatever,  or  ever  so  slightly  by  angel,  spirit,  or  devil. 
The  denial  runs  thus  :  "  As  to  spirit,  I  have  never  seen 
it,  and  I  will  believe  it  when  I  have.  And,  what  is 
more,  I  never  have  heard  of  any  one  worthy  of  belief 
who  ever  did  see  a  spirit.  When  I  am  told  about  my 
head  or  my  hand  I  know  what  is  talked  about ;  but 
about  spirit  I  know  nothing,  nor  anybody  else  either ; 
and  my  common  sense  tells  me  the  same  thing.  And 


18  THE   ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM 

that  God  has  given  me  common  sense  I  do  know.  I 
do  not  mean  to  say  that  we  shall  not  live  again ;  but 
I  mean  to  say  that  at  present  spirit  is  what  my  com 
mon  sense  knows  nothing  about ;  and  I  am  for  com 
mon  sense."  True  ;  but  uncommon  things  may  re 
quire  an  uncommon  sense,  or  rather  a  sense  which  is 
too  commonly  fast  asleep.  For  the  purposes  of  the 
natural  man  which  are  common  sense,  the  faculties  of 
the  natural  man  suffice  ;  but  things  which  are  of  God, 
or  which  look  towards  him,  are  not  so  discerned.  Says 
St.  Paul,  "  Now  we  have  received  not  the  spirit  of  the 
world,  but  the  Spirit  which  is  of  God,  that  we  might 
know  the  things  which  are  freely  given  to  us  of  God." 
Often,  in  the  very  arguments  which  they  employ, 
persons  writing  in  defence  of  the  Christian  miracles, 
evince  their  own  latent  anti-supernaturalism.  Contin 
ually,  in  theological  works,  miracles  are  defended  as 
realities  by  those  who  have  no  perception  whatever  of 
spiritual  laws,  and  no  sense  whatever  of  the  miracu 
lous.  How  much  infected  by  materialism  persons  may 
be  who  fancy  themselves  to  be  very  spiritual  in  their 
views,  is  shown  in  the  attempt  which  frequently  is 
made,  to  render  miracles  credible  by  analogy  with 
Babbage's  Calculating  Machine.  This  wonderful  ma 
chine  is  said  to  work  accurately  through  a  long  series 
of  figures,  till  suddenly  it  throws  up  a  number  which 
is  out  of  order,  and  which  cannot  be  accounted  for,  but 
which,  it  is  supposed,  may  possibly  result  from  some 
undiscovered  law  of  mathematics.  And  it  is  gravely 
suggested  that,  in  obedience  to  some  occult  property, 
the  great  machine  of  nature  has  here  and  there,  and  es 
pecially  about  Palestine,  stopped  its  regularity  for  an 


OF   THE  PRESENT  AGE.  19 

instant,  and  thrown  out  a  miracle,  at  a  time  foreor 
dained  in  the  making  of  the  clockwork.  Anything, 
rather  than  suppose  the  intervention  of  God,  or  angel, 
or  spirit !  Anything  rather  than  a  miracle,  as  being 
out  of  the  order  of  nature,  even  though  really  it  should 
be  in  the  order  of  Heaven !  A  thousand  miracles  of 
the  strangest  origin  may  be  brought  in  at  the  back- 
gate,  if  only  they  can  be  used  for  barring  the  front 
door  of  the  intellect,  against  admitting  the  possibility 
of  signs  and  wonders  having  ever  been  fresh  from 
Heaven,  ever  having  been  supernatural ;  willed,  that 
is  to  say,  in  the  spiritual  world,  outside  of  nature,  and 
at  the  very  seasons  respectively  of  their  being  shown. 

By  certain  professors  of  theology  there  has  been 
lately  published  an  explanation  of  the  day  of  Pente 
cost,  as  having  been  a  day  of  misunderstanding  among 
the  frightened  apostles,  in  consequence  of  there  having 
been  an  earthquake,  which  they  thought  was  a  mighty 
rushing  wind,  in  the  house  where  they  were  sitting. 
And  the  speaking  with  other  tongues,  at  which  the 
foreigners  were  amazed,  is  argued  to  have  been  alto 
gether  a  mistake,  and  in  keeping  with  the  impenetra 
ble  darkness  plainly  discernible  in  the  ingenious  but 
excusable  manner  in  which  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles 
are  narrated,  up  to  the  day  of  Pentecost,  from  the 
resuscitation  of  Christianity,  whenever  and  whatever 
that  may  have  been. 

The  operation  of  the  Spirit  by  its  gifts,  as  described 
by  St.  Paul,  tests  scriptural  expositors  very  curiously. 
One  says,  virtually,  that  it  means  what  it  means,  with 
out  attempting  to  realize  it  in  any  way.  Another  sees 
into  not  only  the  credibility,  but  also  the  philosophy, 


20  THE  ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM 

of  the  various  gifts,  and  yet,  as  even  Neander  does,  finds 
the  gift  of  tongues  to  be  unintelligible  and  improbable. 
And  a  third  expositor  teaches  that  the  gifts  of  the 
Spirit  are  simply  natural  endowments  ;  that  coveting 
earnestly  the  best  gifts  is  merely  attempting  self-cul 
ture  ;  and  that  by  the  gift  of  tongues  is  to  be  under 
stood  not  a  power  for  speaking  languages,  foreign  or 
unknown,  but  the  interjectional,  broken  utterance  of  a 
man  choking  with  emotion.  The  spiritual  blindness 
of  the  age  is  such,  that  often  there  is  not  much  more 
light  to  be  perceived  in  the  Church  than  there  is  out 
of  it.  And  everywhere,  too,  and  in  every  section  of 
the  Church,  are  to  be  seen  blind  leaders  of  the  blind  ; 
and  continually  one  or  other  of  them  looks  up,  and 
with  authority  says  some  such  thing  as  that  the  gift  of 
tongues  means  broken  utterance,  an  inability  to  speak. 
The  anti-supernaturalism  of  our  time  is  shown, 
again,  in  the  state  of  feeling  which  generally  exists 
on  prayer,  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  everything  else  which 
supposes  either  that  the  spiritual  world  can  open  in 
upon  the  soul,  or  the  soul  open  out  on  that.  Of  mod 
ern  treatises  on  the  nature,  operation,  and  effects  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  the  best  which  can  be  said  is,  as  Cole 
ridge  expresses  it,  that  they  believe  that  they  believe. 
They  believe,  indeed,  but  with  a  faith  which  has  never 
realized  itself.  Why  is  it,  that  so  rarely  the  scriptural 
doctrine  of  prayer  is  enforced,  except  by  such  men 
as  preach  everything  which  is  written,  and  everything 
alike  ?  Why  is  it,  that  so  commonly  men  pray  by  the 
way  of  duty  merely,  and  with  no  sense  of  the  Divine 
bosom  to  lean  against  ?  Why  is  it,  that  so  many  good 
men  pray  only  the  prayer  of  self-recollection  before 


OF   THE  PRESENT   AGE.  21 

God,  and  never  the  prayer  of  faith  ?  Why  is  it, 
that  they  go  through  their  daily  supplications  as  a 
spiritual  exercise,  but  never  both  delighted  and  trem 
bling  at  once,  feel  their  souls  in  that  state  when  they 
not  only  speak,  but  are  spoken  to,  when  they  not  only 
humble  themselves,  but  are  consciously  lifted  up  ? 
And  in  almost  any  church,  anywhere,  why  is  it  that  it 
feels  as  though  the  heavens  overhead  were  like  brass, 
but  that  men's  hearts  fail  them  for  fear,  lest  praying 
with  the  apostles,  they  should  be  really  hoping  against 
the  laws  of  nature  ?  There  is  hardly  anything  which 
is  more  foreign  to  our  modern  ways  of  thinking  than 
that  a  sensible  sick  man  should  ever  have  thought  to 
be  the  better  for  calling  the  elders  to  pray  over  him. 
Says  the  Apostle,  "  The  prayer  of  faith  shall  save  the 
sick."  But  to-day,  faith  feels  itself  powerless  for  such 
a  prayer,  being  benumbed  by  the  phrase  "  laws  of  dis 
ease."  And  yet  the  very  same  persons,  who  would 
scout  a  miraculous  cure  of  the  Middle  Ages,  because 
of  the  laws  of  disease  being  as  inviolable  as  the  bands 
of  Orion  or  the  law  of  gravitation,  these  same  persons 
continually  forget  themselves,  and  allow  or  assert  that 
the  will  of  a  patient  helps  on  a  cure.  But,  in  doing 
this,  they  indicate  the  way  in  which  exactly  a  miracle 
is  to  them  incredible.  For,  precisely  their  objection  to 
believing  in  a  miracle  is  because  it  implies  a  hand 
thrust  into  nature  from  outside  of  it;  is  because  it 
implies  the  will  and  action  of  some  one  not  of  this 
world,  God,  angel,  or  spirit. 

It  is  an  old  proverb,  "  Like  people,  like  priest."  Of 
course,  instances  to  the  contrary  must  be  allowed  for ; 
and  then  it  may  be  said  that  the  spirit  of  the  age 


22  THE  ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM 

preaches  from  every  pulpit.  Nor  can  this  be  reason 
ably  expected  to  be  otherwise,  unless  the  preachers 
should  be  at  least  all  men  of  rare  genius,  or  have  been 
educated  in  some  other  earth  than  this.  The  spirit  of 
the  age  is  like  the  atmosphere ;  it  reaches  men  every 
where,  as  they  sit  at  the  fireside  or  in  the  lecture-room, 
and  as  they  wander  in  solitude  or  kneel  in  the  closet. 
And  with  breathing  it,  when  baleful  at  all,  there  are 
very  few  persons,  if  any,  who  can  resist  being  injured 
by  it.  And,  notwithstanding  creeds  and  articles  of  ad 
mission,  it  is  yet  no  more  to  be  shut  out  of  a  church 
than  air  is.  And  if  it  could  be  so  excluded,  then 
the  remedy  of  intellectual  suffocation  would  itself  be 
worse  than  the  disease.  And  thus  everywhere  among 
the  clergy,  when  they  utter  themselves,  is  manifested 
something  of  the  same  anti-supernatural,  anti-spiritual 
state  of  mind  as  what  plagues  other  people.  It  is  true, 
that  the  doctrines  of  supernaturalism  are  almost  uni 
versally  preached;  but  a  discerner  of  spirits  judges 
not  only  from  doctrine,  but  from  the  manner  also  in 
which  it  is  developed.  And  a  preacher  may  set  forth 
doctrines  of  a  supernatural  character,  and  support  them 
by  arguments  from  history  and  logic,  and  he  may  grace 
them,  too,  with  rhetoric,  and  lend  them  also  a  sincere 
utterance,  and  yet  have  no  lively  sense  of  the  miracu 
lous,  nor  much  perception  of  the  spiritual,  of  which 
miracles  are  a  manifestation.  Miracles  are  for  signs  ; 
but  they  are  no  proper  signs,  unless  there  be  in  us 
some  faculty  or  mental  state  to  which  they  signify.  A 
miracle,  believed  merely  from  the  force  of  testimony, 
and  from  simply  the  same  state  of  mind  as  what  be 
lieves  in  the  reports  of  the  diving-bell,  is  not  rightly 


OF  THE  PRESENT   AGE.  23 

believed,  is  not  believed  in  the  right  way,  is  not  be 
lieved  from  that  spiritual  state  from  which  it  ought  to 
be  believed,  and  through  which  only  is  it  of  any  good. 
And  that  state  of  feeling  is  conscious  of  susceptibili 
ties  of  its  own,  and  of  an  order  higher  than  that  of 
nature,  and  of  relations  to  high  answering  purposes  in 
God,  through  which  there  is  not  a  soul  but  may  possi 
bly  be  vouchsafed  a  miracle,  and  not  a  neighborhood 
but  may  perhaps  have  the  Spirit  poured  out  upon  it. 

In  order  to  have  the  miracles  of  the  Bible  answer 
better  the  purpose  of  doctrinal  proofs,  the  theologians 
of  this  century  have  often  largely  availed  themselves 
of  the  spirit  of  the  times  for  the  prejudices  which  it 
prompts  against  the  possibility  of  the  supernatural  in 
any  other  locality  or  age  than  the  scriptural.  But  now 
Chubb,  Toland,  and  Anthony  Collins  were  unbelievers ; 
and  yet  they  were  harmless  men,  compared  with  the 
hapless  clergyman  who  thinks  to  uphold  the  miracles 
of  the  Holy  Scriptures  by  denying  the  possibility  of 
any  others.  He  may  not  know  the  mischief  of  his 
course,  but  his  successor  will  inevitably  develop  it. 

On  the  evidences  of  Christianity  there  is  an  argu 
ment  often  made,  according  to  which  one  well-attested 
ghost-story  would  countervail  all  the  angels  who  have 
ever  visited  this  earth,  whether  singly  or  in  hosts,  and 
all  the  words  of  the  Lord  which  have  ever  come  to 
prophets,  and  all  the  miracles  of  Jesus  and  his  apos 
tles,  and  all  the  visions  of  John  the  Divine.  But 
Eichard  Baxter  knew  better  what  he  was  arguing 
about  than  perhaps  any  English  controversialist  of  this 
day :  and  his  manner  of  arguing  was  the  very  opposite 
of  that.  For  he  published  a  collection  of  narratives  of 


24  THE  ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM 

supernatural  occurrences  in  his  own  time,  which  had 
been  attested  to  him  as  being  true,  by  the  persons  to 
whom  they  happened,  or  else  had  been  vouched  for, 
as  well  authenticated,  by  friends  whose  judgment  he 
thought  he  could  trust.  Such  histories  were  becoming 
unfashionable  in  his  day,  but  Baxter  saw  clearly  and 
published,  that  to  yield  the  credibility  of  such  things 
to  the  sceptics  was  blindly  to  betray  Christ  to  the  Sad- 
ducees. 

Let  facts  be  facts,  and  good  evidence  be  evidence 
everywhere,  or  truth  can  never  be  itself.  Christianity 
will  never  be  itself  while  disciples  fear  for  its  fate,  or 
feel  it  necessary  to  argue  among  themselves  as  to  its 
essence.  As  an  inheritance  from  the  past,  the  gospel 
is  defensible  easily  and  perfectly ;  but  when  it  is  it 
self,  it  is  its  own  sufficient  evidence.  But  even  as  Je 
sus  in  his  own  country  had  to  marvel  at  unbelief,  and 
"  could  there  do  no  mighty  work,"  so  might  Chris 
tianity  now,  in  its  own  country,  complain  of  unbelief 
not  as  directed  upon  itself,  but,  worse  than  that,  as  gen 
eral  anti-spiritual  sentiment,  weakening  the  air ;  so  as 
that  the  soul  of  man  can  get  no  breath  nor  strength,  nor 
can  think  freely,  nor  look  clearly  into  the  past,  nor 
hope  for  what  is  offered  it  from  above,  nor  trust  even 
its  own  faculty  for  receiving. 

In  those  in  whom  it  is  strongest,  the  spirit  of  the  age 
boasts  itself  against  all  the  ages  of  the  past,  and  de 
nounces  them  as  being  unworthy  of  credit  on  the  great 
est  things  which  they  have  to  tell  about,  and  as  being 
incapable,  incompetent  witnesses  on  even  some  veiy 
simple  subjects  of  observation.  And  this  it  does,  not 
withstanding  that,  though  calling  itself  the  spirit  of 


OF   THE  PRESENT   AGE.  25 

this  enlightened  age,  it  is  the  avowed  spirit  of  perhaps 
not  one  person  in  a  hundred.  Every  now  and  then 
comes  forth  some  one,  who  says  aloud,  after  this  man 
ner,  "  I  know  it,  and  also  every  man  living,  knows  by 
his  own  eyes  and  ears,  that  there  has  nothing  ever  been 
known  of  the  spiritual  world,  not  a  word  from  it  even, 
not  a  miracle.  That  there  is  a  state,  a  region,  a  foun 
tain-head,  a  something  of  spirit,  it  is  now  agreed  shall 
be  considered  as  certain.  But  that  anybody  knows  or 
ever  has  known  more  about  it  than  anybody  else,  is 
nonsense.  I  am  myself  the  standard  by  which  you 
may  measure  Abraham  the  patriarch ;  and  as  to  his 
visions,  they  were  merely  dreams,  such  as  I  have  my 
self.  I  am  the  measure  of  the  man  Paul.  And,  you 
may  believe  me,  as  to  voice  or  light  from  heaven  ever 
having  come  to  him  at  the  time  of  his  conversion, 
that  it  was  not  so.  Simply,  at  that  time,  he  had  an  at 
tack  of  vertigo,  such  as  we  all  know  something  about. 
0,  the  glorious  freedom  of  the  spirit,  by  which  I  am 
free  to  ignore  the  weary  past,  so  hard  to  understand, 
with  its  miracles  and  histories  !  O,  this  glorious  clear 
ing  of  the  mind,  by  which  now,  in  my  view,  there  is 
nothing  higher  anywhere  than  the  level  of  my  own  ex 
perience  !  0,  what  a  comfort  it  is  to  have  miracles 
shrink  into  common  earthly  things,  and  to  know  that 
nobody  has  ever  seen  them,  any  more  than  I  have  ! " 
This  would  seem  to  be  odd  comfort;  but  there  are 
persons  who  think  that  they  feel  it. 

The  spirit  of  the  age  !     Just  as  it  is  of  this  age  pre 
cisely,  so  certainly  is  it  but  a  bubble  on  that  stream 
of  spirit  which  comes  down  through  all  the  ages  of  the 
past,  and  which  will  run  on  for  men  and  through  them, 
2 


26  THE  ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM 

till  they  all  on  earth  shall  be  no  more.  Soon,  of  the 
self-gratulation  and  self-glorification  of  the  spirit  of 
the  time,  all  that  will  remain  as  palpable  effect  will  be 
a  few  very  curious  lines  in  the  History  of  Man. 

As  certainly  as  the  pendulum  swings  from  side  to 
side,  as  certainly  as  feeling  is  subject  to  revulsion,  as 
certainly  as  man  walks  by  one  step  to  the  right  and 
another  step  to  the  left,  so  surely  in  the  next  genera 
tion  will  men  of  science  generally  believe  in  the  mira 
cles  of  the  Scriptures,  and  be  curious  students  also  in 
the  idolatries  of  Egypt,  Greece,  and  Eome,  and  be  in 
terested  even  in  the  superstitions  of  the  tribes  of 
Africa,  as  seeming  to  suggest  the  possibility  of  some 
singular  variations  from  the  commonly  received  opin 
ion  as  to  spiritual  influx. 

This  world  of  ours,  —  this  world  of  our  eyes,  and  of 
the  optical,  electric,  and  other  instruments,  with  which 
our  eyes  are  helped,  —  this  world  of  our  bodily  senses 
has  circumfused  about  it  and  permeating  it  a  world  of 
spirit,  as  to  which  philosophy  conjectures  confidently, 
and  which  faith  is  sure  of,  and  as  effects  resulting  from 
which  experience  tells  of  miracles.  It  may  be  that  in 
some,  perhaps  even  in  many  respects,  this  world  may  be 
the  antitype  of  that  world  invisible  ;  and  it  may  be,  as 
Plotinus  has  said,  that  we  human  beings  are  the  dregs 
of  the  universe ;  but  even  if  it  should  be  so,  between 
us  dregs  and  the  good  wine  above  there  may  be  a 
great  difference  by  inferiority,  but  there  must  also  be 
a  great  likeness.  To  that  spiritual  world  and  this 
world  of  ours  at  least  there  is  one  thing  in  common, 
a  great  thing,  —  the  company  of  vanished  friends  we 
have  had,  who  know  of  our  wants  and  ways  and  wishes, 


OF   THE  PRESENT   AGE.  27 

and,  at  least,  who  wonder  about  us.  Between  us 
here  and  them  over  there,  on  some  points  there  must 
be  affinity.  And  it  may  be,  as  sometimes  philosophy 
has  taught,  that  the  atmosphere  of  that  world,  or  rath 
er,  perhaps,  an  effluent,  diffusive  effect  from  it,  may  be 
necessary  to  our  consciousness  as  thinking  beings,  just 
as  the  atmosphere  of  this  earth  is  the  breath  which  we 
draw  in  common  with  other  earthly  creatures,  such  as 
cats,  dogs,  and  horses.  But  should  there  be  anything 
"like  such  an  atmosphere  surrounding  us,  it  would  not 
probably  be  to  be  known  of  very  often  ;  and  indeed,  it 
might  never  be  distinctly  perceptible,  except  on  some 
occasions  of  a  miraculous  kind.  But,  whatever  may 
be  the  philosophy  of  the  connection  between  the  world 
invisible  of  spirit  and  this  visible  world  of  us  people 
in  the  flesh,  that  connection  does  exist. 

It  is  true,  that,  above  and  beyond  the  ordinary  ex 
perience  of  mankind,  there  is  an  influence  sometimes 
felt,  of  which  the  effects  are  what  is  called  miraculous, 
or  wonder-causing  ;  and,  in  the  strength  of  which,  it  is 
possible  that  a  common  man  might  show  himself  like 
an  angel,  for  wisdom ;  and,  with  stretching  out  his 
hand,  have  it  answer  like  the  finger  of  God  for  mira 
cles  ;  and  have,  indeed,  the  inborn,  latent  faculties  of 
his  spirit  so  quickened,  as  that  both  his  words  and 
deeds  together  would  be  like  signs  and  wonders  from 
Heaven.  And,  it  is  true,  that  the  ongoings  of  this 
world  are  capable  of  being  quickened  by  power  from 
the  world  invisible,  so  as  that  a  man  might  be  con 
verted  from  sin  to  holiness  in  a  moment ;  and  a  man 
that  is  a  leper  be  restored  in  an  instant ;  and  even  in 
such  a  manner,  as  that  a  dead  man  in  the  tomb  might 


28  THE   ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM 

hear  and  come  forth ;  and  so  .as  that  in  a  vessel,  water 
might  be  so  affected,  as  that  upon  it  might  occur,  in 
stantaneously,  what  could  otherwise  only  be  the  result 
of  slow  processes  in  the  earth,  on  the  vine,  and  at  the 
winepress,  and  afterwards.  It  is  true,  also,  that  now 
and  then  in  the  process  of  the  ages  there  have  been 
seasons  in  which,  from  the  outpouring  of  the  Spirit, 
young  men  have  seen  visions,  and  old  men  have 
dreamed  dreams,  which  were  signs  and  wonders,  and 
proofs  of  that  higher  order  of  things  which  mortals 
belong  to. 

It  is  true  that,  from  outside  of  the  circle  of.  human 
nature,  there  are  influences  for  human  spirits,  such  as 
those  which  once,  for  a  simple  maiden,  quickened  fore 
thought  into  the  power  of  prophecy,  and  made  strong 
feeling  be  the  outgoing  of  angelic  power,  and  caused 
the  life  of  a  peasant-girl  of  Domremy  to  become  the 
career  of  Joan  Dare ;  and  such  as  those,  with  the  expe 
rience  of  which  George  Fox  grew  to  be  a  prophet  and 
the  mouthpiece  of  power  from  above  ;  and  under  the 
sense  of  which  John  Wesley  was  wrought  up  to  the 
recognition  of  spiritual  marvels,  which  the  multitude 
could  not  believe,  and  at  which  still  the  majority  can 
only  laugh,  —  influences  by  which  every  now  and  then 
persons  are  able  to  affirm,  some  that  they  have  felt 
themselves  called,  warned,  or  comforted ;  others  that 
they  have  been  inspired  for  work,  such  as  otherwise 
they  could  only  have  wondered  at  and  never  have 
done  ;  and  others,  that  they  have  been  conscious  of 
having  been  guarded  in  times  of  exposure,  sometimes 
by  angels  in  person,  and  sometimes  by  tendencies 
started  upon  them,  angelic  as  to  their  ends,  —  influ- 


OF  THE   PKESENT   AGE.  29 

ences  from  above,  by  which  there  have  been  in  every 
age,  since  the  time  of  Paul,  persons  who  have  known 
what  it  is  to  be  lifted  up,  above  the  beggarly  element  of 
mere  law,  into  that  liberty  with  which  Christ  has  made 
men  free,  which,  however,  as  to  the  ends  of  service, 
is  stricter  than  even  the  letter  of  the  law,  and  concur 
rently  with  which  often  the  Spirit  will  work  on  a 
man  simultaneously  as  conviction  for  sin,  as  absolu 
tion  by  grace,  as  inspiration  from  above,  and  as  accept 
ance  with  God. 

It  is  true,  that  the  Waldenses  are  worthy  of  belief, 
and  that  they  hold  that  among  them,  at  certain  periods 
in  their  history,  there  have  been  events  sensibly 
pointed  by  the  finger  of  God  on  their  behalf  It  is 
true  that  in  the  Cevennes,  when  the  Huguenots  were 
nearly  in  the  last  agony  from -persecution,  there  opened 
among  them  a  power,  by  which  the  machinations  of 
their  enemies  afar  off  were  sometimes  disclosed  to 
them,  as  though  by  sudden  revelation  to  one  or  other 
of  their  members,  —  a  power  which  clothed  them  with 
such  terror,  as  that,  almost  in  the  manner  of  the  old 
promise,  one  of  them  could  chase  a  thousand ;  and  so 
as  that,  indeed,  a  mere  handful  of  men,  as  they  were, 
they  resisted  for  long  years  and  successfully  the  con 
centrated  armies  of  France,  —  a  power  which,  going  out 
from  a  speaker,  made  even  Catholic  enemies  succumb 
and  confess  themselves,  —  a  power  which  often  uttered 
itself  from  the  mouths  of  little  children, —  a  power 
through  which  they  believed  many  times,  and  where 
it  is  impossible  to  think  that  there  could  have  been 
mistakes,  that  there  was  let  in  upon  their  mortal  ears 
the  songs  of  the  hosts  of  heaven.  It  is  true,  that  men 


30  THE   ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM 

worthy  of  all  credence  have  testified  of  experiences 
by  which  the  early  history  of  the  Church  of  Scotland 
is  not  unlike  a  continuation  of  the  Book  of  Acts.  And 
it  is  true,  that  by  what  the  Spirit  has  been  and  has 
done  amongst  them,  the  Friends  have  been  justified  in 
trusting  to  it.  It  is  true  that,  even  in  these  latter  cen 
turies,  there  have  been  branches  of  the  Church  which 
have  blossomed  with  the  marvels  of  ancient  times,  be 
cause  of  the  Spirit  which  has  been  in  them.  And  it 
is  true,  .that  still  and  now,  there  are  good  reasons  for 
trusting  and  expecting  the  Spirit. 

The  Spirit !  The  saints  of  all  ages  cannot  have  been 
deceived,  or  been  self-deceived,  as  to  what  they  felt 
and  trusted ;  the  martyrs  who,  one  after  another,  laid 
down  their  lives  for  Christ,  until  they  became  a  great 
army;  the  fervent  spirits,  like  Augustine,  who  tried 
one  way  of  life  and  another,  till  at  last,  with  turning 
about,  their  souls  caught  the  light,  at  which  they  re 
joiced  with  trembling ;  the  scholars,  like  Thomas 
Aquinas,  who,  svith  studying  themselves  as  to  the  nat 
ural,  became  but  the  more  persuaded  as  to  a  something 
that  touched,  or  held,  or  drew,  or  whispered  them  that 
was  supernatural ;  and  students  like  Cudworth,  who 
gathered  up  the  experiences  of  the  ages  and  the 
thoughts  of  all  great  writers,  as  to  what  of  a  spiritual 
nature  had  ever  been  known,  or  felt,  and  who  gazed 
upon  it,  till  they  saw  the  Intellectual  System  of  the 
Universe  take  shape  in  it ;  and  hosts  after  hosts  of 
gentle  souls,  such  as  Madame  Guion  and  the  poet 
Cowper,  who  tasted,  as  they  thought,  of  the  powers  of 
the  world  to  come.  It  is  true,  that,  except  when  it 
gets  impeded  and  disbelieved,  there  is  an  opening  be- 


OF   THE  PRESENT  AGE.  31 

tween  this  world  and  the  next,  as  it  is  called,  by  which 
comes  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  through  which  it  may  be 
that  sometimes  we  some  of  us  are  approachable  by  va 
rious  occult  influences,  some  of  a  high  origin,  and  oth 
ers  of  a  nature  not  so  good.  And  it  is  true,  that  there 
are  good  reasons  for  believing  that  when  Christians 
can  pray  again  as  Christians  used  to  do,  and  have  fit 
ted  themselves  by  acts  of  faith  for  seeing  it,  that  there 
will  be  felt  the  approach  of  a  day  which,  with  its  com 
ing,  will  assimilate,  still  more  nearly  than  at  present, 
the  lives  of  modern  disciples  to  the  experiences  of  the 
saints  of  all  ages. 

One  swallow  does  not  make  a  summer,  nor  does  one 
Christian  make  a  church.  A  believer  separated  from 
his  fellow-creatures  by  convictions  which  they  do  not 
share  ;  a  man  living  apart  from  the  sin  about  him  in 
loneliness ;  a  woman  shrinking  from  unsympathetic 
contact,  and  dwelling  in  seclusion  with  her  own  heart, 
—  for  these  all  there  is  communion  with  God  by  the 
Spirit.  But  there  is  an  answer  from  above,  which  is 
specially  for  the  prayer  of  two  or  three.  And  on  an 
age  of  controversy  separating  believers  from  one  anoth 
er,  even  though  through  it  there  should  be  higher  and 
better  ground  to  be  reached,  there  is  an  irremediable, 
unavoidable  drawback  attendant,  and  that  is  the  loss 
of  the  unity  of  the  Spirit.  The  joy  which  a  man  has 
in  common  with  a  multitude,  is  not  the  same  joy  which 
he  has  all  to  himself  in  his  closet.  And  however  a 
man  may  be  sanctified  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  through  re 
ligious  experiences  apart  from  his  neighbors,  yet  should 
he  ever  become  one  with  a  great  body,  wherein  by  that 
same  Spirit  all  the  members  are  harmonized  together, 


32  THE  ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM 

he  would  feel  a  triumphant  joy  quite  new  to  him  ;  and 
he  would  have  such  a  sweet  confidence  of  God's  love 
to  men  everywhere  and  in  every  state,  as  would  be  for 
him  like  a  new  sense  of  salvation. 

Fearful  is  the  penalty  wrhich  the  holiest  of  dis 
senters  incur,  and  sometimes  without  knowing  it,  and 
even  while,  perhaps,  it  is  the  voice  of  Christ  from 
Heaven  which  they  obey,  though  they  do  not  go 
without  compensation  from  the  grace  of  God,  nor  yet 
without  that  crown  which  is  specially  vouchsafed  for 
martyrs.  But  yet,  so  it  is,  that,  in  the  Church  of 
Christ,  with  losing  the  unity  of  the  Spirit,  or  the  Holy 
Spirit  in  common,  there  is  a  great,  grievous  loss. 

The  Spirit  may  be  quenched  in  the  present  age  from 
one  cause  and  another,  as  so  largely  it  is  ;  but  it  can 
re-assert  itself.  If  to-day  be  clouded  by  scepticism,  to 
morrow  may  be  broad  daylight  from  a  "  sun  with  heal 
ing  on  its  wings."  And  if  in  this  age,  because  of  sec 
tarianism,  Christians  can  hardly  be  what  they  ought 
to  be,  as  to  faith,  hope,  and  charity,  perhaps  in  the 
next  age  divisions  will  have  ceased  altogether.  It 
may  be  asked,  perhaps,  how  such  a  thing  as  that  can 
ever  be  hoped  for.  And  certainly  it  cannot  be  ex 
pected  humanly,  as  though  from  controversies  having 
been  argued  out.  But  even  as  Jesus  Christ,  after  his 
resurrection,  appeared  among  his  disciples  suddenly, 
while  the  doors  were  shut,  so  perhaps  he  may  again  ; 
and  thus  it  may  happen  that  the  various  churches  of 
Christendom,  which  to-day  have  their  doors  shut 
against  one  another,  will  some  time  find  themselves  all 
included  in  one  great  fold,  by  the  manner  in  which, 
through  the  Spirit,  Christ  will  manifest  himself,  so  as 


OF  THE  PRESENT   AGE.  33 

to  be  recognized  of  all,  in  one  church  and  another, 
irrespectively  of  walls  of  separation. 

And  at  that  time,  —  0,  dear  anticipation,  sure 
though  as  the  heavens  themselves,  however  far  off,  — 
at  that  time  Christians  will  know  one  another,  almost 
without  a  word,  because  of  the  Spirit ;  and  with  assem 
bling  together,  they  will  feel  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost, 
such  as  at  present  public  worship  stirs  but  rarely.  In 
meditation,  also,  because  of  the  ease  with  which  men 
will  apprehend  spiritual  things,  it  will  be  as  though 
they  "  were  all  taught  of  God."  And  while  inquiring 
in  some  particular  direction,  where  there  is  no  seeing 
for  the  eye,  and  no  hearing  for  the  ear,  —  strange  and 
holy  experience,  which  only  the  holiest  hearts  are  fit 
for !  —  while  so  inquiring,  often  for  the  natural  man, 
the  darkness  will  yield  to  a  light  not  of  this  world,  nor 
of  mere  reason,  but  of  the  Spirit  quickening  him  from 
within,  by  which  man  sees  what  he  could  not  other 
wise  have  seen,  and  understands  what  is  only  to  be 
spiritually  apprehended  ;  "  for  the  Spirit  searcheth  all 
things,  yea,  the  deep  things  of  God." 

Strange  and  incomprehensible  language  this  is  for 
many  persons.  But  yet  it  means  what  is  the  same 
thing  as  the  text :  "  Draw  nigh  to  God,  and  he  will 
draw  nigh  to  you"  ;  it  means  that  ifc  is  of  the  nature  of 
Deity,  to  gravitate  towards  souls  in  earnest.  Men,  too 
are  encouraged  to  hope  even  more  than  that,  and  to  be 
lieve  that  God  will  help  our  helplessness,  and  inform 
our  ignorant  prayers,  if  we  will  let  him.  "  Likewise  the 
Spirit  also  helpeth  our  infirmities ;  for  we  know  not 
what  we  should  pray  for  as  we  ought ;  but  the  Spirit 
itself  maketh  intercession  for  us  with  groanings  which 
2*  c 


34  THE   ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM 

cannot  be  uttered."  And  now  again,  because  of  this  age 
which  we  live  in,  does  this  text  seem  to  need  still  fur 
ther  translation  ?  It  means  that  there  is  direct  action 
of  God  upon  the  soul,  and  which  a  man  may  yield  to 
or  resist ;  and  that  that  operation  is  not  merely  such 
force  as  that  by  which  the  eagle  lives,  or  the  pulse 
beats,  but  rather  is  like  the  presence  of  a  dear  father 
with  his  son,  in  a  time  of  trouble,  by  which  the  child 
feels  himself  fill  with  courage,  and  grow  strangely 
quick  of  apprehension. 

In  the  next  age,  when  men  shall  have  learned  how 
and  where  to  find  themselves  ;  when  they  shall  have 
escaped  from  the  bewildering  effects  of  human  science 
imperfectly  mastered;  and  disproportionately  esteemed ; 
when  they  shall  have  come  to  see  how  this  earth  re 
volves,  and  may  yet,  very  well,  have  been  visited  by 
angels  at  times  ;  when  science,  in  some  great  professor, 
shall  have  been  baptized  by  the  Spirit,  then  will  be 
gin  great  and  multitudinous  effects  to  ensue.  And  be 
cause  of  the  spirit  of  the  times,  science  then  will  grow 
•poetic  with  rainbow  beauties,  and  poetry  will  grow 
towards  prophecy,  from  the  deeper  strain  which  will  be 
in  it  of  spiritual  and  eternal  truth.  It  will  sing  famil 
iarly  in  a  style  which  Milton  reached  only  a  few  times, 
and  which  ^Eschplus  just  knew  of,  but  which  more 
exactly,  will  be  as  though  King  David  should  return 
to  chant,  from  his  heavenly  experience,  fresh  psalms 
for  his  friends  on  earth. 

Also,  under  the  influence  of  the  Spirit  from  on  high, 
social  problems,  which  now  seem  to  be  hopeless,  will 
become  very  easy  of  solution.  For,  when  people  shall 
wish  to  stand  right  before  God,  when  they  shall  be 


OF   THE   PRESENT   AGE.  35 

willing  to  let  their  hearts  be  drawn  and  draw  them,  it 
will  be  wonderful,  in  all  righteousness,  how  soon  and 
naturally  and  easily  they  will  find  themselves  standing 
towards  one  another  as  they  ought  to  do.  With  a  gen 
eral  experience  of  the  Spirit,  yet  no  greater  than  there 
is  to-day  of  scepticism,  but  with  such  an  experience 
of  the  Spirit,  what  is  there  socially  which  might  not 
be  hoped  for  ?  Since,  because  of  the  Spirit  in  com 
mon,  there  will  be  a  feeling,  —  of  exactly  the  opposite 
origin,  however,  from  communism,  —  there  will  be  a 
feeling  with  the  rich  for  letting  their  wealth  run  to 
common  uses,  as  far  as  prudence,  and  political  econo 
my,  and  the  state  of  the  world  will  allow ;  like  the  im 
pulse  for  having  all  things  in  common,  which  was  felt 
by  the  first  Christians,  during  the  first  few  days  after 
Pentecost.  And  things  which  at  present  are  continually 
being  reformed,  and  always  to  no  purpose ;  things  in 
vincible  to  reason,  and  incapable  of  being  corrected  by 
utilitarian  philanthropy,  will  yield  at  once  to  the 
sweet,  subtle  effects  of  that  Spirit,  by  which  believers 
will  feel  themselves  to  be  all  "  baptized  into  onef  body," 
and  by  which  they  will  know  themselves,  for  glory  and 
shame,  for  joy  and  sorrow,  to  be  really  and  vitally 
"  members  one  of  another." 

There  are  some  special  causes  of  scepticism  to-day, 
which  in  perhaps  the  next  age  will  have  ceased  almost 
altogether.  And,  in  that  better  temper  of  the  times, 
Christianity,  as  the  work  of  Christ  through  the  Spirit, 
will  manifest  itself  still  more  distinctly  than  it  does 
to-day.  It  is  oddly  characteristic  of  these  times,  that 
as  regards  the  gospel,  men  are  more  dutiful  than  believ 
ing.  They  act  out  of  a  higher  spirit  than  they  are 


36  THE   ANTI-SUPERNATURALISM 

quite  sure  of.  "  Lord,  I  believe  ;  help  thou  mine  un 
belief,"  —  this  precisely  is  their  state  of  mind.  With 
their  hearts  they  believe,  but  not  quite,  not  altogether 
with  their  minds.  They  would  believe  wholly  but  for 
an  accident  in  social  progress,  and  which  indeed  is  a 
temporary  humor,  the  mere  spirit  of  the  age. 

But  already  signs  are  visible  of  a  new  period,  and 
with  its  arrival,  fresh  impulse  will  be  felt  from  "  the 
powers  of  the  world  to  come";  and  God  will  be 
known  more  dearly,  as  a  mighty  fatherly  presence 
about  us  and  awaiting  us;  and  by  every  believing 
heart  Christ  will  be  more  tenderly  felt  as  its  per 
sonal  friend ;  and  by  every  bereaved  and  suffering 
spirit,  more  vividly  still  than  now,  the  communion  of 
saints  will  be  felt  across  the  grave. 

And  because  there  have  been  wonders  in  the  past, 
they  will  not,  perhaps,  be  wanting  to  the  glory  of  the 
future.  And  again,  it  may  be,  will  the  gifts  of  the 
Spirit  subserve  the  work  of  the  Spirit  in  the  Church ; 
and  one  man  find  himself  preternaturally  quickened  in 
wisdom,  for  the  benefit  of  his  fellows;  and % another, 
by  the  way  of  prophecy,  become  like  the  mouthpiece 
of  thought  from  outside  of  this  world ;  and  another, 
by  reason,  perhaps,  of  some  personal  and  fitting  pe 
culiarity,  be  known  as  a  channel  of  healing  power 
for  the  afflicted ;  and  still  another,  from  perhaps  some 
special  susceptibility,  be  remarkable  for  the  faith  that 
will  possess  him,  and  through  him  that  will  strength 
en  the  brethren. 

These  are  things  which  we  may  never  see,  per 
haps,  but  yet  as  mere  possibilities,  they  have  some 
meaning  for  us.  It  is  for  human  beings  that  the  or- 


OF   THE   PRESENT   AGE.  37 

der  of  nature  is  orderly,  and  not  for  any  other  crea 
tures.  And  when  signs  and  wonders  are  vouchsafed 
on  earth,  it  is  only  to  men  that  they  are  significant, 
at  all.  And  no  doubt,  if  men  could  be  the  better 
for  it,  the  heavens  themselves  would  be  bowed  and 
brought  down.  The  Lord  is  willing  to  meet  man  as 
far  as  possibly  he  can,  consistently  with  allowing 
man  himself  to  stir  at  all. 

We  men  are  but  like  creatures,  which  have  just 
struggled  into  life,  from  out  of  the  dust ;  and  there 
fore  it  is  no  great  wonder  if  we  should,  some  of  us, 
be  tempted  to  think  too  highly  of  mere  dust. 

But  beyond  the  realm  of  the  natural  is  the  re 
gion  of  the  supernatural,  which  we  know  of,  and  to 
which,  as  knowing  of  it,  we  must  certainly  belong. 
And  reasonably  and  rightly  may  we  trust  those 
glimpses  of  it,  which  have  been  caught  and  reported 
by  previous  voyagers  across  the  sea  of  time,  even 
though  they  may  have  been  but  as  momentary  as 
the  observations  at  noon,  which  sometimes  have  to 
suffice  the  sailor  for  a  stormy  passage  across  the  At 
lantic  ;  for,  even  of  ourselves,  we  can  judge  as  to 
whither  the  current  sets  which  carries  us.  And,  for 
our  comfort,  we  have  faith,  which  has  been  wrought 
into  our  nature,  like  an  instinct,  by  our  Creator ;  and 
therefore  it  is  what  may  be  trusted  like  God  himself. 
And  faith  points  for  us,  like  the  magnetic  needle,  in 
a  starless  night,  and  is,  exactly  and  truly,  "the  evi 
dence  of  things  not  seen." 


SCIENCE  AND  THE   SUPEKNATUBAL. 

AS  to  spirit,  and  its  laws  and  likelihoods,  a  man  is 
prepared  for  judging  by  zoology,  chemistry,  and 
star-gazing,  no  better  at  all  than  he  would  be  by  accu 
racy  as  to  the  Greek  particle,  or  by  a  good  instinct  for 
Hebrew  roots.  Every  man  to  his  trade.  Ne  sutor  ultra 
crcpidam  !  We  will  listen  respectfully  to  the  man  of 
science  for  what  he  has  to  say  as  to  the  operations  and 
limitations  of  the  laws  of  nature,  within  that  circle 
of  the  sphere  of  nature  which  has  been  explored  ;  but 
when  he  would  dogmatize  on  the  supernatural, —  when 
he  would  arrogate  the  right  to  deny  the  possibility  of 
effects  which  claim  to  originate  with  a  cause  outside 
of  what  himself  he  calls  the  bounds  of  nature,  —  then 
we  would  remind  him  that  he  ought  to  keep  within 
his  jurisdiction,  and  not  pronounce  on  matters  alto 
gether  foreign  to  him,  and  which,  perhaps,  belong  to 
the  province  of  another  man.  But,  the  higher  the 
order  of  mind  which  they  are  of,  the  further  are  scien 
tific  men  from  the  danger  of  falling  into  a  mistake 
like  that.  Many  trades  and  professions  have  diseases 
peculiar  to  them.  For  the  painter  there  is  colic,  for 
the  clergyman,  sore  throat;  for  the  workers  in  fine 
steel,  consumption ;  and  for  the  shoemaker,  hepatitis. 
And  in  the  middle  ages  physicians  used  to  be  sus 
pected  of  the  morbus  medicorum,  or  a  peculiar  ten- 


SCIENCE   AND   THE   SUPERNATURAL.  39 

dency  to  unbelief,,  as  the  result  of  their  special 
studies.  And,  indeed,  from  a  special  study  of  the  laws 
of  nature  there  is  of  course  the  danger  of  making  too 
much  of  them;  an  undue  tendency  towards  judging 
other  things  by  analogy  with  them  ;  an  inclination  to 
deny  miracles  merely  because  of  their  not  being  uni 
form  with  common  life  and  surrounding  nature. 

There  have  been  persons  who  have  accepted  some  of 
the  miracles,  and  denied  others,  by  a  curious  eclecticism 
resulting  from  their  special  studies  or  individual  char 
acters.  One  theologian  has  thought  that  there  may 
have  been  some  misunderstanding  as  to  the  cure  of 
diseases  by  the  laying-on  of  hands ;  while  he  had  no 
doubt  at  all  about  the  miraculous  draught  of  fishes. 
And  another  has  believed  implicitly  in  the  miraculous 
multiplication  of  the  twelve  loaves  and  a  few  fishes, 
because  of  there  having  been  three  thousand  fainting 
persons  to  be  fed;  while  he  has  confessed  himself 
doubtful  about  the  first  miracle  at  Cana  in  Galilee,  be 
cause  of  its  having  turned  water  into  wine  at  a  festival. 
And  a  third  theologian  has  accepted  all  the  miracles 
of  the  Gospels  but  one,  but  has  doubted  of  one,  be 
cause  of  his  being  unable  to  see  that  any  good  purpose 
could  have  been  answered,  by  the  withering  of  the  fig- 
tree.  And  there  have  been  those  who  have  been  un 
able  to  believe  in  miracles  affecting  matter,  but  who 
have  been  enthusiastic  believers  in  prophecy,  and  in 
the  spiritual  miracle  of  our  Lord's  character.  But  of 
judgments  on  this  subject,  affected  by  personal  pecu 
liarities,  perhaps  the  most  curious  is  that  of  Lord  Her 
bert  of  Cherbury,  who  prayed  to  God  for  a  sign,  which 
he  believed  was  given  to  him,  to  direct  him  as  to  pub- 


40  SCIENCE  AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL. 

lisliing  a  volume,  which  he  had  written  against  the 
probability  of  revelations  being  given  from  heaven,  to 
individual  men,  or  to  particular  places. 

By  a  man  of  the  same  order  of  mind,  perhaps,  with 
Lord  Herbert,  though  perhaps  more  ingenious,  a  theory- 
was  invented  eighty  years  ago,  and  which  is  still  advo 
cated,  for  maintaining  the  reality  of  miracle  concur 
rently  with  the  unchangeableness  of  the  Order  of 
Nature.  Thus,  it  is  said  that  miracles  were  inserted 
in  nature  at  the  creation,  to  be  developed  in  order,  in 
its  course,  just  as  there  is  a  striking  of  the  clock  at 
certain  points  foreordained  by  the  maker.  On  this 
theory,  Christ,  by  a  prophetic  impulse,  called  into  the 
tomb  to  Lazarus  to  come  forth,  just  at  the  moment 
when  the*  buried  man  was  already  waking  up  from 
death  by  a  foreordained  irregularity,  inserted  in  the 
Order  of  Nature.  Curious  believing  this  is,  even 
though  according  to  the  order  of  nature  !  Predis 
positions  of  thought,  caused  by  peculiar  studies,  very 
easily  become  prejudices ;  and  they  are  none  the  less 
bigoted  and  blinding,  if  they  result  from  science. 

This  is  a  common  argument.  God  made  the  world 
perfect ;  and  if  it  be  perfect,  its  laws  must  be  unalter 
able  ;  and  if  its  laws  are  unalterable,  they  have  there 
fore  never  been  suspended ;  and  if  they  have  never 
been  suspended,  then  there  has  never  been  a  miracle. 
But  now  this  is  absurd,  even  in  its  own  way  of  reason 
ing.  For,  indeed,  the  more  absolutely  perfect  the  world 
is  reckoned,  precisely  the  more  significant  does  any 
variation  become  in  the  uniform  working  of  its  laws. 

But  probably  a  miracle  never  was  a  suspension  of 
the  laws  of  nature.  The  Scriptures  do  not  so  define 


SCIENCE  AND   THE  SUPERNATURAL.  41 

it.  And,  indeed,  about  the  laws  of  nature  they  never 
say  anything  at  all.  And  it  is  very  likely  that  what 
in  our  blindness,  we  should  call  a  suspension  of  the 
laws  of  nature,  or  a  momentary  stoppage  of  nature's 
clock-work,  is  really  more  than  that,  and  is,  indeed, 
matter  pliant  to  spirit ;  and  has  occasionally  been 
something  more  important  still  than  that,  and  has 
been  really  the  finger  of  God  in  the  laws  of  nature, 
pointing  them  to  a  special  purpose  of  his  own ;  and 
been,  indeed,  the  showing  from  heaven  of  a  sign  and 
wonder. 

It  is  true,  that,  from  studying  the  laws  of  matter,  a 
man  may  be  indisposed  for  believing  in  spirit.  Not, 
however,  that  the  laws  of  nature  have  anything  to 
suggest  against  the  existence  of  spirit ;  for  they  have 
not.  But  it  is  an  effect  of  our  human  weakness,  that 
if  habitually  we  look  intently  in  one  direction,  we  find 
ourselves  disinclined  from  the  opposite.  And  so  it  may 
sometimes  be,  that  the  farther  a  man  sees  into  nature, 
the  blinder  he  may  grow  as  *to  what  is  above  it,  or  to 
the  supernatural.  But  Bacon  and  Newton  were  not 
sceptical  as  to  miracles.  Philosophers,  such  as  they 
were,  have  eyes  not  merely  for  details,  but  for  the  uni 
verse  as  a  whole.  They  are  more  than  the  owners  of 
lamps,  to  grope  with,  as  being  themselves  illumi 
nated  from  within;  and  under  their  analyzing  eyes 
even  solid  matter  itself  seems  but  like  the  mist  which 
just  holds  the  beauty  of  the  rainbow ;  while  also  to 
them  the  laws  of  nature  are  not  mere  enactments,  but 
are  qualities  of  that  creative  power  which  is  every 
where  present,  and  which  everywhere  is  undivided 
and  uncompounded,  simple  in  essence  but  various  in 


42  SCIENCE   AND   THE   SUPERNATURAL. 

manifestation ;  a  power  which  is  attraction  and  re 
pulsion,  both  in  one,  and  life  and  death  on  the  same 
impulse. 

The  truths  which  flash  like  lightning  in  the  soul  of 
the  prophet,  are  not  without  corroboration  from  the 
long  processes,  by  which  philosophy  investigates.  And 
when  he  attends  reverently  to  the  experiments  of  sci 
ence,  often  the  true  philosopher  testifies  that  to  his 
feeling  there  are  reported,  not  only  forces  pervading 
matter,  but  also  from  outside  of  nature  and  abqve  it ; 
and  from  the  place  of  spirit  also,  the  living  eye  and 
the  working  will,  and  the  existence  incorruptible,  from 
which  those  forces  begin. 

In  the  long,  early  morning  of  creation,  after  the 
world  had  been  without  form  and  void,  everything 
everywhere  was  a  miracle,  —  the  first  fern,  however  it 
may  have  been  produced,  with  its  leaves  heavy  with 
moisture  and  sparkling  in  the  sun ;  the  first  oak,  long 
afterwards,  in  an  atmosphere  grown  cooler  and  drier ; 
the  last  ichthyosaurus,  as*  it  died  of  an  altered  world ; 
the  first  horse,  proud  of  his  speed  on  the  green  turf ; 
the  lion,  as  he  first  roared  after  his  prey,  by  an  instinct 
which  had  not  yet  learned  its  own  meaning ;  and  the 
lark,  as  it  first  went  up  into  the  sky,  and  filled  the  air 
with  its  song.  And  so,  by  the  true  philosopher  re 
membering  this,  miracles  are  not  thought  of  as  being 
antecedently  impossible.  Nor  to  him,  either,  is  it  an 
impossible  thing,  that  a  disembodied  spirit  should  be 
able  to  act  on  matter  move  a  table,  throw  stones,  make 
noises  ;  for  he  remembers  that  there  is  no  real  knowl 
edge  of  the  manner  by  which  even  the  living  man  has 
his  limbs  actuated  by  his  spirit.  A  belief  in  the  pos 
sibility  of  miracles  is  not,  then,  barred  by  science. 


SCIENCE  AND   THE   SUPERNATURAL.  43 

That  God,  as  being  perfect,  must  have  made  a  world 
perfect  in  itself,  and  with  perfect  laws,  and  therefore 
with  laws  which  never  can  need  to  be  meddled  with, 
is  the  great  argument  against  the  possibility  of  miracles. 
It  is  of  the  same  kind  with  that,  which  the  heathen 
Celsus  urged  against  the  probability  of  redemption 
through  Christ,  which  indeed  was  a  miracle  at  the 
beginning,  —  "  That  God  has  made  his  work  perfect 
once  for  all,  and  does  not  need,  like  a  man,  to  mend  it 
afterwards."  But  perhaps  it  is  exactly  because  God  is 
not  like  a  man,  that  he  does  not  make  his  work  per 
fect  once  for  all,  is  not  obliged  to  complete  it  absolutely 
and  at  once,  and  to  get  it  off  his  hands.  Perhaps  the 
world  is  perfect,  not  in  time,  but  in  eternity.  It  was 
not  absolutely  perfect  when  it  was  merely  crept  upon 
by  the  Saurians,  nor  was  it  perfect  as  surveyed  by  the 
childlike  eyes  of  Adam ;  nor  is  it  perfect  now,  being 
as  it  were  a  creature,  groaning  and  travailing  in  pain 
along  with  man,  as  St.  Paul  would  say.  But  perhaps 
it  is  really  perfect,  only  as  it  looks  to  the  angels ;  only 
as  seen  from  the  beginning  all  through  to  the  end,  with 
its  uses  all  plain,  and  its  susceptibilities  of  divine  agency 
all  manifest,  whether  for  uniform  law,  or  for  signs  and 
wonders  from  heaven ;  whether  as  a  school  for  the 
education  of  the  human  intellect,  or  as  a  land,  where 
what  is  natural,  at  first,  grows  to  be  spiritual ;  and 
where  man  arrives  at,  and  tastes  of  the  powers  of  the 
world  to  come. 

Also,  there  is  no  analogy  between  God  and  man  as 
to  their  works,  whence  to  argue  against  miracles.  Man, 
of  himself  and  by  himself,  can  do  nothing  whatever, 
absolutely  nothing,  whether  perfect  or  imperfect.  For 


44  SCIENCE   AND   THE   SUPERNATURAL. 

he  cannot  stir  himself,  cannot  even  lift  his  hand,  but 
by  the  help  of  powers,  about  which  he  knows  almost 
nothing  whatever,  —  vital  force,  the  will,  the  con 
tractility  of  the  muscles.  Also,  when  it  is  to  be  rea 
soned  from,  the  word  "  perfect "  means  finished,  done 
with.  Now  this  is  a  very  good  word,  for  the  good 
work  of  a  mortal.  But  it  would  seem  that  sometimes 
the  work  of  God,  wrho  is  a  spirit,  eternal,  immortal, 
might  rather  be  expected  to  be  perfect,  by  being  in  a 
way  comparatively  imperfect ;  that  is,  by  being  filled 
with  a  spirit  of  growth,  and,  therefore,  of  improving 
change,  and  by  continuing  forever  in  connection  with 
that  sustaining  power,  through  which  things  change 
"  from  glory  to  glory."  For  the  children  of  the  High 
est  then,  as  growing  more  and  more  receptive,  it  might 
be  expected  that  there  should  be  "  times  of  refresh 
ing  "  to  come  "  from  the  presence  of  the  Lord  " ;  that 
it  should  be  in  the  order  of  Providence  to  "  put  a  new 
spirit  within  "  men  from  time  to  time,  and  subserving 
the  same  purpose  as  creation  itself,  also  to  "  show  won 
ders  in  the  heavens  and  in  the  earth." 

And  now  these  wonders  do  not  derogate  from  the 
wondrousness  of  the  universe,  but  really  they  enhance 
it.  For,  as  a  fact,  would  the  laws  of  nature  be  less  re 
liable  for  a  philosopher,  because  of  his  believing  in  the 
possibility  of  exceptional  occurrences  like  miracles  ? 
And  the  answer  is,  No  ;  emphatically,  No.  Sir  Isaac 
Newton  was  not  a  matter-of-course  Christian  ;  indeed, 
he  was  a  Christian  scholar.  But,  from  believing  in 
miracles,  he  does  not  appear  to  have  been  weakened 
or  confused,  as  a  believer  in  the  Order  of  Nature. 
And  actually  it  was  by  him,  that  the  law  of  gravita- 


SCIENCE  AND   THE   SUPERNATURAL.  45 

tion  was  discovered.  It  is  a  legal  maxim,  that  "  ex 
ceptions  prove  the  rule " ;  and  some  day  or  other,  it 
will  commonly  be  held,  that,  by  their  nature  and  man 
ner,  miracles  make  more  plain  the  very  laws  against 
which  they  would  seem  to  except. 

A  perfect  God  can  only  have  made  a  world  perfect, 
of  its  kind  ;  and  a  perfect  world  must  be  made  of  per 
fect  laws ;  and  perfect  laws  can  never  need  to  be  sus 
pended  or  supplemented ;  and  so  there  is  no  possible 
room  in  nature  for  a  miracle.  It  is  ludicrous,  how  this 
argument  has  been  iterated  and  reiterated,  as  though 
logic  were  just  as  good  against  facts  as  against  doc 
trines.  In  the  last  century,  by  men  of  science  and 
others  who  never  saw  one  fall,  it  was  proved  to  a 
demonstration,  that  meteoric  stones  were  vulgar  er 
rors.  To-day,  however,  science  is  sublimely  persuad 
ed  of  them,  notwithstanding  their  having  once  been 
natural  and  scientific  impossibilities.  And  hereafter 
miracles  will  be  believed,  for  reasons  of  various  kinds, 
and  for  twenty  thousand  analogies,  by  the  successors 
of  the  very  men  who  to-day  argue  that  there  is 
logically  no  room  for  a  miracle  in  the  world. 

The  perfect  world  of  a  perfect  maker  excludes 
miracles  !  But  now,  perhaps,  the  world  is  not  as 
perfect  as  it  seems,  or  as  some  people  fancy  them 
selves  bound  to  affirm  it.  Perhaps,  too,  it  is  ab 
solutely  perfect  only  in  logic.  And  perhaps  in  this 
case,  as  is  often  done,  the  form  of  logic  has  been  bor 
rowed  by  arrant  nonsense. 

A  perfect  world,  in  perfect  order  from  the  beginning, 
and  that  will  keep  perfect  to  the  end ;  and  which, 
therefore,  will  admit  of  nothing  new  in  it,  not  a  single 


46  SCIENCE   AND   THE   SUPERNATURAL. 

miracle,  —  why,  what  an  assumption  this  is  !  For, 
when  the  argument  takes  this  turn,  there  are  some 
questions  to  be  asked.  What  is  this  world  ?  What 
is  perfect  order  ?  Whereabouts,  even,  is  this  world 
we  talk  about  ?  Whereabouts  is  it  in  those  fields  of 
space,  which  are  crossed  one  way  and  another,  and  up 
and  down,  by  those  infinite  lines,  measured  by  which 
from  here  to  the  sun  is  as  nothing,  and  in  the  course 
of  which,  earth  and  suns  and  planetary  systems  are 
passed  by,  like  moths  on  a  sunbeam  ?  The  perfect 
Order  of  Nature  pleaded  against  the  possibility  of  a 
miracle ;  while  nobody  knows,  or  is  ever  likely  to 
know,  in  the  full  sense,  what  that  order  is  !  Perhaps, 
after  all,  miracles  were  in  order  always,  in  perfect 
order,  in  the  order  of  the  universe :  as  of  course  they 
must  have  been.  Perfect  order  may  be  one  thing,  as 
viewed  in  the  system  of  the  universe ;  and  may  be  the 
same  thing,  with  a  difference  apparent  or  real,  as  dis 
cernible  in  some  little  dim  corner  in  creation,  or  as 
manifested  in  a  load  of  matter  whirling  on  its  way,  a 
quaking  earth  with  a  magnetic  affinity  for  the  north 
pole,  and  with  other  affinities  quite  as  important  as 
that,  perhaps,  although  at  present  quite  unsuspected. 

Miracles,  or  many  things  in  the  Bible  which  com 
monly  are  so  denominated,  may  be  exceptions  to  what 
are  called  the  law^s  of  nature,  as  at  present  understood 
by  the  best  student ;  but,  as  witnessed  by  a  seraph, 
they  may  have  been  but  the  effect  of  laws  more  in 
number  than  we  know  of,  and  some  of  which  acted 
marvellously,  by  being  in  connection  with  a  mind  as 
peculiarly  organized  as  a  prophet's  is,  at  a  moment  of 
faith  in  the  head  of  the  universe,  as  almighty  and 


SCIENCE  AND   THE   SUPERNATURAL.  47 

good.  And  some  other  miracles  may  have  been  mo 
mentary  effects  from  this  cause,  —  "  There  is  a  spiritual 
body."  Every  mortal  is  both  *body  and  spirit ;  or,  as 
it  would  be  better  to  say,  he  is  and  has  what  St.  Paul 
means  when  he  says,  "There  is  a  natural  body,  and 
there  is  a  spiritual  body."  By  death,  the  natural  body 
is  loosened  from  the  spiritual  body,  and  drops  and 
begins  to  decay,  like  an  old  cloak ;  while  the  spiritual 
body  has  its  senses  slowly  open  to  the  world,  in  which 
it  finds  itself.  But,  even  while  cased  in  flesh,  it  is 
possible  that  some  of  the  faculties  of  the  spiritual 
body,  either  by  accident  or  by  the  grace  of  God,  may 
be  so  quickened  as  to  act  independently  of  the  flesh. 
The  eye,  with  which  I  am  to  see  hereafter,  might  be 
opened  for  a  moment,  so  as  that  I  should  get  a  glimpse 
of  spiritual  marvels;  and  that  opening  of  my  eye 
would  be  a  miracle,  like  what  happened  when  the 
prophet  Elisha,  with  his  servant,  was  beleaguered  by 
the  army  of  Syrians.  "  And  Elisha  prayed,  and  said, 
Lord,  I  pray  thee  open  his  eyes,  that  he  may  see.  And 
the  Lord  opened  the  eyes  of  the  young  man,  and  he 
saw ;  and,  behold,  the  mountain  was  full  of  horses  and 
chariots  of  fire  round  about  Elisha."  And  in  the  same 
manner  might  the  dormant  ear  also  of  my  spiritual 
body  be  momentarily  quickened,  so  as  to  catch  just  a 
word  or  two,  a  sound,  an  alarm,  a  message,  from  the 
spiritual  world ;  which  indeed  is  intimately  near,  and 
yet  also  infinitely  far  off.  And  this  would  be  a  miracle, 
like  what  Paul  experienced  at  his  conversion.  Also, 
if  by  some  chance,  through  some  inward  predisposi 
tion,  a  man  should  catch  a  breath  from  the  air  of  that 
world,  where  the  Great  First  Cause  is  first  felt,  where 


48  SCIENCE   AND   THE   SUPERNATURAL. 

spirits  are  made  messengers,  and  where  ministration 
looks  like  flaming  fire,  the  effect  on  him  would  be  a 
miracle  like  what  the  last  words  of  David  tell  of,  — 
"  The  spirit  of  the  Lord  spake  by  me,  and  his  word 
was  in  my  tongue."  These  illustrations  may  be  enough 
for  hinting  that  there  is  a  philosophy  of  religion,  in 
which  faith  and  science  are  to  be  reconciled,  and  in 
which  the  natural  and  the  supernatural  may  be  of  one 
accord.  But  let  now  one  other  illustration  be  taken. 
It  is  conceivable,  what  in  many  ages  has  been  generally 
believed,  under  the  best  philosophy  of  the  time,  that 
between  us  and  God,  neighbors  of  ours  almost,  far  be 
low  the  region  of  seraphs,  not  nearly  as  high  up  as 
where  angels,  with  their  archangels,  congregate,  and 
indeed  near  upon  and  sometimes  fairly  withinside  of 
the  realm  of  nature,  are  beings  who  could,  for  mo 
mentary  effect,  and  as  though  from  a  long  distance,  play 
upon  the  laws  of  nature,  so  as  to  work  what  Hugh 
Farmer  and  Baden  Powell  would  even  call  miracles, 
as  being  in  their  estimation  acts  suspending  the  laws 
of  nature.  Philosophy  had  very  close  blinders  on, 
when  it  decided,  with  Farmer,  that  for  the  elevation 
of  a  man  in  the  air,  without  human  assistance,  there 
must  be  a  suspension  of  the  laws  of  nature.  A  law 
of  nature  suspended  for  that !  It  was  no  more  neces 
sary  for  that,  than  it  is  for  a  man's  lifting  his  hand  in 
the  air.  Something  additional  to  the  laws  of  nature, 
as  catalogued  by  philosophers,  may  have  been  neces 
sary,  some  occult  law  it  may  be,  in  unusual  strength, 
or  perhaps  an  agent  from  a  foreign  world.  But  a  sus 
pension  of  the  law  of  gravitation  it  certainly  is  not 
necessary  to  suppose.  As  Jesus  with  the  law  of 


SCIENCE  AND   THE   SUPERNATURAL.  49 

Moses,  so  miracles  with  the  laws  of  nature,  do  not 
destroy,  but  fulfil. 

Also,  in  view  of  an  argument,  it  is  always  to  be  re 
membered  that  the  phrase  "  laws  of  nature  "  is  a  figure 
of  speech,  good  enough  for  ordinary  purposes,  but  liable 
to  be  deceptive  at  a  critical  point.  Law  is  what  has 
been  written  for  the  purpose  of  being  read ;  and  also 
it  is  what  has  been  written  for  the  purpose  of  being 
read,  on  the  supposition  of  there  being  a  joint  under 
standing  between  the  writer  and  the  reader.  That  is 
law ;  and  it  is  because  of  that  sense  of  the  word  "  law," 
that  the  phrase  "  laws  of  nature  "  is  used  against  mira 
cles.  But  now,  has  ever  the  God  of  nature  been 
pledged  to  any  text-book  of  natural  philosophy,  so  as 
that  Science,  or  any  son  of  hers,  should  be  able  to  say, 
"  Because  of  this  book  of  mine  I  know  all  about  God, 
as  to  what  either  he  will  do  or  what  he  can  allow  in 
this  earth"? 

Also,  it  is  of  the  nature  of  "  law,"  in  its  primitive 
meaning,  that* it  should  need,  and  from  time  to  time 
should  admit  of  adaptation,  and  amendment  by  inter 
pretation.  But  that  exactly  is  what  is  forgotten,  when 
the  majesty  of  the  word  "  law "  is  adduced  in  a  con 
troversy  on  the  subject  of  miracles.  And  thus  it  is 
that  against  the  possibility  of  miracles,  a  phrase  of 
fallible  origin  is  urged  as  an  infallible  argument. 

Laws  of  nature  working  together,  and  yet  distin 
guishable  from  one  another,  like  powers  harnessed  in 
machinery,  —  of  the  on-going  of  nature,  this  may  be  a 
good  definition  for  most  purposes ;  but  when  by  this 
definition  it  is  proposed  to  falsify  the  truthfulness  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  as  to  his  miracles,  then,  in  the 
3  D 


50  SCIENCE  AND   THE   SUPERNATURAL. 

sense  intended  and  for  the  purpose  in  view,  let  it  never 
be  forgotten  that  really  there  are  no  laws  of  nature,  and 
that  there  never  were  any.  Men  talk  of  forces  cen 
tripetal  and  centrifugal,  and  as  though  one  might  have 
been  enacted  first,  and  then  the  other :  but  the  truth 
probably  is,  that  the  two  are  but  diverse  manifestations 
of  a  common  cause ;  or,  rather,  that  the  two  are  one, 
while  seeming  diverse.  Also  this  common  cause  seems 
to  man  like  two  different  forces  or  laws,  only  because 
of  the  peculiar  and  limited  manner  in  which  he  can  ap 
prehend.  What  poor  creatures  really  men  are,  as  they 
look  about  them,  with  no  very  wide  or  keen  gaze,  as  even 
telescopes  and  microscopes  might  remind  them  !  Far, 
with  far  better  instruments  than  have  ever  yet  been 
made,  and  with  better  eyes  than  children  have  ever 
yet  been  born  with,  what  marvels  might  not  men  see, 
to  their  amazement !  And  yet  these  men,  or  some  of 
them ;  dwellers,  too,  in  a  little  earth  surrounded  by 
infinity ;  born  also  in  time,  as  they  know  they  are,  yet 
having  also  some  sense  of  eternity;  these  men  of  a 
day,  and  creatures  of  God,  —  Feuerbach,  the  German, 
and  Strauss,  a  German  too,  and  Kenan  of  France,  and 
Buckle,  who  was  English,  with  others  like-minded,  too 
numerous  to  count,  —  these  all  have  proclaimed  aloud, 
that,  because  of  what  they  know,  there  cannot  have 
been  anywhere,  at  any  time,  anything  but  what  they 
might  have  expected,  and  precisely  that  there  never 
has  been  a  miracle.  But  for  all  that,  and  in  spite  of 
their  logic,  "the  Lord  knoweth  the  thoughts  of  the 
wise,  that  they  are  vain."  This  sentiment  a  Psalm 
ist  uttered  once  among  the  Hebrews,  and  long  after 
wards  it  was  quoted  by  Paul  in  a  letter  to  Corinth ; 


SCIENCE  AND   THE   SUPERNATURAL.  51 

but  it  was  never  more  pertinent  than  it  is  to-day. 
Arago  said  that  outside  of  mathematics  the  word  "  im 
possible  "  for  anything  was  rash.  Perhaps  he  said  it 
out  of  what  may  be  called  the  common  sense  of  sci 
ence  ;  which  common  sense,  however,  is  as  rare  in 
connection  with  science  as  with  anything  else.  Or  it 
may  be  that  he  said  it,  because  of  his  having  studied 
the  case  of  Angelique  Cottin,  a  girl  who  was  attended 
by  some  curious  phenomena.  But  any  way,  he  was 
very  unlike  Michael  Faraday  and  some  others.  "  Pos 
sible  and  impossible  pronounced  upon,  by  the  last 
edition  published  of  the  laws  of  nature ! "  This  is 
what  is  continually  being  proclaimed  by  one  man  and 
another.  It  would  make  people  all  laugh  or  else  pity, 
but  for  the  spirit  of  the  age  ;  for,  indeed,  we  are  all  of 
us  much  inclined  to  the  same  thing.  But  it  is  no  mat 
ter  for  these  philosophers  and  their  followers,  as  to  who 
they  are  or  where,  —  the  wise  men.  For  certainly 
somewhere  there  is  wisdom  higher  than  their  wisdom, 
and  from  the  height  of  which  their  self-complacency 
must  be  something  very  curious  to  witness.  But,  above 
and  beyond  all,  there  is  the  truth  of  the  text  that  "  the 
Lord  knoweth  the  thoughts  of  the  wise,  that  they  are 
vain." 

Laws  of  nature  arrayed  against  miracles  !  For  an 
argument  in  that  direction,  there  are  no  such  things 
as  laws  of  nature.  Or  if  the  phrase  "  laws  of  nature  " 
should  be  allowed  to  stand,  on  its  being  made  right  by 
accompanying  explanation,  it  would  be  found  then  to 
be  the  same  thing  as  the  spirit  of  God,  which,  like 
"  the  wind  bloweth  where  it  listeth,"  and  not  merely 
for  human  creatures  on  their  way  from  the  cradle  to 


52  SCIENCE   AND   THE   SUPERNATURAL. 

the  grave,  but  for  worlds,  also,  while  slowly  growing 
into  form,  and  while  lengthening  out,  with  change  and 
time,  the  fulfilment  of  their  respective  purposes.  It 
is  that  spirit  which  is  the  transient  life  of  the  butter 
fly,  and  the  inspiration  which  "giveth  man  under 
standing  " ;  that  spirit  which  holds  the  earth  to  its 
time  and  place,  and  which  yet  also  strives  with  men 
through  the  conscience ;  that  spirit  which  is  the  life 
of  all  lives,  from  the  worm  to  the  seraph,  and  of  which 
the  Spirit  of  Nature,  as  it  is  called,  is  but  one  of  many 
manifestations. 

On  arriving  at  the  point  of  view  which  we  have 
now  reached,  there  have  been  persons  who  have  felt  the 
atmosphere  about  them  grow  more  favorable  to  faith, 
and  who  have  exclaimed,  "  Now  I  hear  them  more 
plainly,  those  witnesses  of  old,  chosen  beforehand. 
Now  I  am  less  a*t  variance  with  some  of  the  possibili 
ties  of  faith.  Now  some  things  which  were  hard  to  be 
understood  are  easier.  0  holy  prophets  and  apostles  ! 
forgive  me,  in  these  times  when  the  pathway  of  thought 
goes  winding  about,  if  I  have  sometimes,  with  turning, 
heard  you  but  indistinctly,  and  fancied  that  the  fault 
was  all  with  you  ! " 

But  there  are  others,  to  whom  all  this  would  be 
quite  unintelligible,  and  who  simply  iterate  and  re 
iterate  words,  outside  of  the  circle  of  which  they  can 
not  see.  And  now  for  .them,  also,  let  us  see  if  there 
be  anything  more  to  be  said,  which  may  avail.  It  is 
an  eclipse  of  faith  for  us  all  at  present :  and  things 
which  were  simple  enough  formerly,  in  the  broad  day 
light,  now  look  strangely  ;  and  what  once  would  have 
been  comparatively  of  little  significance  may  now  be 
a  great  help. 


SCIENCE  AND   THE   SUPERNATURAL.  53 

But  first  let  us  hear  again  exactly  what  Strauss 
would  say.  And  he  says,  very  emphatically,  "  There 
is  no  right  conception  of  what  history  is,  apart  from 
a  conviction  that  the  chain  of  endless  causation  can 
never  be  broken,  and  that  a  miracle  is  an  impossi 
bility."  But  how,  then,  has  it  been  with  almost  every 
historian,  of  every  age,  before  David  Hume  ?  How 
was  it  with  Josephus,  Herodotus,  Thucydides,  Plu 
tarch,'  Tacitus,  Diodorus  Siculus,  Dionysius  of  Hali- 
carnassus,  Pausanias  the  Topographer,  and  their  com 
pany  all  ?  According  to  that  little  formula  by  Strauss, 
they  would  all  be  disqualified.  Surely,  surely,  by  at 
tempting  to  prove  too  much,  Professor  David  F.  Strauss 
has  disproved  his  own  position.  He  is  famous  for  his 
work  on  the  four  Gospels,  in  which  he  laboriously 
eliminated  every  miracle  from  the  life  of  Jesus.  It 
was  after  the  publication  of  this  work,  that  there  was 
offered  to  him  the  professorship  of  theology  in  the 
University  of  Zurich,  and  which  he  would  have  ac 
cepted,  but  for  an  insurrection  of  the  people  of  the 
city.  The  end  of  the  matter  was  a  letter  in  which  he 
stated  his  opinions,  and  in  reference  to  which  it  may 
be  said,  that  he  perhaps  had  more  faith  even  in  deny 
ing,  than  possibly  some  others  had  even  in  the  heat 
of  *  dogmatizing,  and  that  not  improbably  Jesus  Christ 
would  sooner  have  accepted  even  his  unbelief  than 
the  unmitigated  virtues  of  some  of  his  opponents. 
But  still,  in  his  attempt  to  go  to  Zurich  as  Professor 
of  Theology,  he  was  in  the  curious  position  of  propos 
ing  to  lecture  on  Christianity,  without  believing  in  a 
single  miracle ;  and  of  attempting  it,  too,  by  the  help 
of  historians,  not  one  of  whom,  as  he  thought,  had 


54  SCIENCE   AND  THE   SUPERNATURAL. 

any  right  conception  of  history.  Alas,  alas !  but  so 
it  is,  that  every  step  forward  intellectually  costs  a  hun 
dred  failures  first ;  and  it  is  because  of  the  tears  and 
misery  of  adventurers  on  the  road  to  knowledge,  that 
the  flints  of  difficulty  are  found  smooth,  by  the  multi 
tude  as  they  advance  from  behind. 

There  has  lately  been  published  a  volume  entitled 
"  Christ  the  Spirit."  It  is  the  serious  work  of  a  de 
vout  mind  struggling  with  theological  difficulty.  Says 
the  author,  E.  A.  Hitchcock,  in  regard  to  the  Scrip 
tures,  "  If,  therefore,  we  accept  these  miracles  as  his 
torical  realities,  we  must  refuse  the  idea  of  law,  and 
must  admit  that  there  is  no  truth  in  the  doctrine 
which  affirms  an  order  in  the  course  of  nature." 
Perhaps  the  force  of  this  opinion  may  have  been 
anticipated,  and  even  perhaps  prevented,  by  some 
previous  remarks.  Also  it  is  said,  that,  if  those  mira 
cles  are  to  be  believed  in,  there  is  no  such  thing  pos 
sible  as  science.  But  that  would  not  appear  to  have 
been  the  opinion  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  the  man,  of  all 
men,  best  fitted  to  judge.  And  further  it  is  added, 
that  if  those  miracles  are  to  be  believed  in,  then  rea 
sonably  Grecian  mythology  must  be  believed.  Grecian 
mythology  might,  for  that  reason,  claim  to  be  ex 
amined  ;  but  not  necessarily  claim,  therefore,  to  .be 
believed.  And  also  it  is  not  theology,  but  sciolism, 
which  would  wish  to  argue  Christianity  in  ignorance 
of  the  philosophy  and  religion  of  Greece.  Light, 
and  still  more  and  more  light,  let  us  have,  wherever 
we  may  be,  and  even  though  it  should  fall  on  our 
Bibles,  through  some  crevice  in  the  wall  of  a  Grecian 
temple ! 


SCIENCE   AND   THE   SUPERNATURAL.  55 

And  now  who  offers  himself  next  as  a  witness  on 
this  subject  ?  It  is  Henry  T.  Buckle,  who  would  tell 
us,  out  of  his  "  History  of  Free  Thought/'  that  there  is 
little  reason  to  hope  for  the  enlargement  of  the  ground 
of  the  evidences  of  Natural  and  Eevealed  Eeligion; 
that  the  materials  already  exist  from  which  thoughtful 
students  must  make  up  their  minds  finally  on  the 
questions  at  issue;  that  already  men  are  taking  up 
their  places,  in  hostile  array,  on  subjects  where  no 
further  evidence  can  be  offered,  and  where  there  is  lit 
tle  reason  to  hope  for  the  alteration  of  the  state  of  par 
ties  to  the  end  of  time ;  that,  as  regards  Christianity, 
there  never  has  been  an  age  so  hostile  to  it  as  the  pres 
ent,  and  never  an  age,  either,  so  much  actuated  by  it. 
Nothing  more  to  be  expected  on  the  greatest  possible 
subject  of  thought !  Why,  what  advanced  times  we 
live  in  !  and  even  without  our  knowing  of  it,  some  of 
us  !  The  field  of  thought  is  cleared  by  scientific  method, 
and  there  is  no  chance  of  anything  to  the  end  of  time  ! 
This  may  be  true  for  a  near-sighted  thinker,  but  hardly 
for  any  one  else.  Are  there,  then,  experts  who  can  look 
through  the  universe  as  though  it  were  machinery  ? 
Electricity,  magnetism,  and  odic  force,  with  which 
man  has  affinities,  and  by  which  indeed,  apparently, 
he  has  all  manner  of  possible  connections,  —  have 
these  all  been  thoroughly  explored  ?  And  is  it  so 
absolutely  nothing,  as  not  to  be  worthy  of  mention, — 
the  chance  of  there  being  a  Master  for  the  great  Ma 
chine,  with  a  will  of  his  own  ;  the  possibility  of  there 
being  a  Father  in  heaven  with  children  on  this  earth  ? 
Man  proposes,  but  God  disposes.  That  is  a  French 
proverb,  to  which  every  now  and  then  there  is  a  won- 


56  SCIENCE   AND   THE   SUPERNATURAL. 

derful  point,  and  that  point  may  possibly  show  itself 
at  any  time. 

And  now  next,  let  what  Baden  Powell  would  say 
be  considered.  He  is  Savilian  Professor  of  Geometry 
at  Oxford,  and  a  clergyman,  yet  he  is  of  opinion  that 
it  would  be  a  great  good  done,  if  Christianity  could  be 
relieved  of  its  responsibility  for  miracles.  Prophecy, 
however,  and  some  other  spiritual  marvels,  he  thinks 
may  rationally  be  connected  with  Christianity.  This, 
however,  Eenan  would  not  agree  to ;  for  he  holds  that 
miracles  are  no  more  possible  or  credible  for  the  souls, 
than  for  the  bodies  of  men.  However,  Baden  Powell 
is  certain  that  the  Order  of  Nature  is  the  first  thing, 
and  everything  for  belief;  and  then  he  argues,  very 
properly,  for  patience  with  untoward  facts,  as  likely, 
some  time  or  other,  to  get  subordinated.  He  has  heard, 
however,  of  apparently  marvellous  occurrences,  "  such 
as  implied  a  subversion  of  gravitation,  or  of  the  con 
stitution  of  matter ;  descriptions  inconceivable  to  those 
impressed  with  the  truth  of  the  great  first  principle  of 
all  induction, —  the  invariable  constancy  of  the  order 
of  nature."  But  then,  as  about  a  thing,  with  which  he 
could  have  no  patience,  nor  his  system  either,  he  cries 
out  that  he  has  "  heard  it  positively  affirmed  by  vera 
cious,  educated,  and  well-informed  persons,  in  perfect 
good  faith,  that  a  solid  mahogany  table  has  been  seen 
to  rise  from  the  ground  and  its  surface  to  move  in 
waves."  For  that,  of  course,  wTas  a  thing  for  which,  in 
his  philosophy,  there  was  no  hope  of  a  place,  any  more 
than  for  the  miracles  which  he  wished  Christianity 
could  be  freed  from.  Order  of  Nature  !  always  only  the 
Order  of  Nature,  —  as  though  there  were  no  such  thing 


SCIENCE  AND  THE   SUPERNATURAL.  57 

conceivable  as  the  Order  of  the  Universe.  And  yet, 
by  way  of  analogy  with  his  special  studies,  it  would 
seem  as  though  he  might  have  thought  of  it.  For 
problems  which  are  utterly  insoluble  by  arithmetic, 
and  which  are  outside  of  its  range,  are  the  objects  and 
beauties  of  algebra,  which  has  been  called  a  diviner 
arithmetic,  and  which  may  well  be  reckoned  by  some 
persons  to  have  wonder-working  laws. 

And  now,  on  this  subject  of  the  Order  of  Nature, 
has  Baden  Powell  ever  been  answered  ?  A  table  ris 
ing  in  the  air,  if  such  a  thing  might  be,  would  be  a 
sufficient  answer  for  his  style  of  scepticism,  according 
to  his  own  words,  apparently.  But,  apart  from  that, 
has  any  answer  been  made,  by  which  to  justify  a  be 
lief  in  the  miracles  of  Christianity,  against  the  Ox 
ford  professor  with  his  grand  argument  against  it  ? 

And  now,  in  the  sequence  of  thought,  appears  James 
A.  Froude,  also  of  Oxford,  and  late  Fellow  of  Exeter 
College.  And  in  a  recent  publication,  in  a  passage 
which  specially  refers  to  the  volume  of  "  Essays  and 
Keviews,"  of  all  the  authors  of  which  Baden  Powell 
was  the  most  notable,  J.  A.  Froude  says,  that  against 
that  style  of  thought  there  has  nothing  been  adduced, 
but  "  the  professional  commonplaces  of  the  members 
of  a  close  guild,  men  holding  high  office  in  the  Church, 
or  expecting  to  hold  high  office  there."  Professional 
commonplaces !  Many  others  besides  Froude  have 
found  them  such,  and  have  thought  them  to  be  in 
sufficient  answers  for  the  new  scepticism.  But  now, 
like  Baden  Powell,  J.  A.  Froude,  by  implication  at 
least,  distinctly  acknowledges  that  the  miracles  of  the 
Scriptures  would  be  credible,  if  some  of  the  phenom- 


58  SCIENCE   AND  THE   SUPERNATURAL. 

ena  of  Spiritualism  should  be  realities.  To  these 
things  his  attention  had  been  drawn ;  and  to  his  knowl 
edge,  he  avers  that  they  have  been  vouched  for  by  per 
sons,  who  would  be  good  witnesses  on  a  criminal  trial. 
But  yet  he  says,  "  Our  experience  of  the  regularity  of 
nature  on  one  side  is  so  uniform,  and  our  experience 
of  the  capacities  of  human  folly  on  the  other  is  so 
large,  that,  when  people  tell  us  these  wonderful  stories, 
most  of  us  are  content  to  smile  :  we  do  not  care  so 
much  as  to  turn  out  of  our  way  to  examine  them. 
The  Bible  is  equally  a  record  of  miracles."  The 
Bible !  But,  indeed,  of  what  use  is  it  to  mind  any 
thing,  which  he  may  say  about  the  miracles  of  the 
Bible,  when,  according  to  his  own  showing,  he  would 
not  even  go  out  of  his  way,  to  see  whether  they  might 
not  be  true  ?  For,  things  which  to  his  mind, — whether 
rightly  or  wrongly  is  no  matter,  —  things  which  to  his 
mind  were  of  a  piece  with  the  miracles  of  the  Bible, 
he  would  not  even  turn  out  of  his  way  to  examine. 
But  against  a  belief  in  miracles  he  urges  not  only 
that  they  are  impossible,  but  that  "  the  miracles  of  St. 
Theresa  and  St.  Francis  of  Assisi  are  as  well  estab 
lished  as  those  of  the  New  Testament."  And  now, 
even  if  this  should  be  so,  what  then  ?  Are  we  for  that 
to  forego  our  belief  in  the  miracles  of  the  Bible  ?  No  : 
quite  otherwise.  And,  if  there  be  anything  to  be 
learned  from  Assisi,  so  much  the  better. 

Next  in  order  of  time,  with  an  argument  upon  this 
subject,  appears  Dr.  Louis  Biichner,  with  his  volume 
on  "  Force  and  Matter."  Says  this  author,  "  We  should 
only  waste  words  in  our  endeavor  to  prove  the  natural 
impossibility  of  a  miracle.  No  educated,  much  less  a 


SCIENCE  AND   THE   SUPERNATURAL.  59 

scientific  person,  who  is  convinced  of  the  immutable 
order  of  things,  can  nowadays  believe  in  miracles. 
We  find  it  rather  wonderful  that  so  clear  and  acute  a 
thinker  as  Ludwig  Feuerbach  should  have  expended 
so  much  logic  in  refuting  the  Christian  miracles. 
What  founder  of  any  religion  did  not  deem  it  neces 
sary,  in  order  to  introduce  himself  to  the  world,  to 
perform  miracles  ?  The  miracle-seeker  sees  them  daily 
and  hourly.  Do  not  the  table-spirits  belong  to  the 
order  of  miracles  ?  All  such  miracles  are  equal  in 
the  eye  of  science :  they  are  the  result  of  a  diseased 
fancy."  These  are  the  words  of  a  man  very  clear  in 
his  mind ;  though  his  mind  is  not  of  the  same  order 
with  Plato's,  certainly.  "  Do  not  the  table-spirits  be 
long  to  the  order  of  miracles  ? "  Dr.  Buchner  him 
self  would  seem  to  think  so,  by  the  way  in  which  he 
asks  the  question.  Baden  Powell  too,  no  doubt,  would 
have  agreed  with  him  ;  and  so  also  would  Fronde,  the 
historian.  But  Buchner  has  one  other  word  for  us. 
"  Even  to  this  day,  there  is  no  deficiency  of  miracles 
and  powerful  spirits  among  savage  and  ignorant  tribes." 
Are  we,  then,  to  be  frightened  from  believing  in  mira 
cles,  because,  if  there  are  any  at  all,  there  are  some 
also  among  savages  ?  Just  as  well  might  Dr.  Buch 
ner  expect  a  Christian  to  be  ashamed  of  the  sun,  be 
cause  the  red  Indian  hunts  in  the  light  of  it.  "  Miracles 
and  powerful  spirits  among  savage  and  ignorant  tribes  ! " 
Well,  the  better  we  know  about  that  thing,  the  wiser 
we  shall  be,  and  the  better  it  will  be  for  our  theology ; 
and  it  is  not  everybody  who  is  afraid  of  learning. 

Baden  Powell,  James  A.  Froude,  Dr.  Biichner,  and 
with  these  might  be  joined  one  or  two  other  leaders  in 


60  SCIENCE  AND  THE   SUPERNATURAL. 

the  argument  against  the  credibility  of  miracles, — 
these  would  all  apparently  be  ready  to  test  the  reality 
of  the  miracles  of  the  Bible  by  the  phenomena  of 
Spiritualism,  or  perhaps  more  definitely  by  the  reality 
of  the  raps,  which  are  called  spirit-rappings.  In  some 
sense,  they  may  even  be  said  to  dare  the  experiment ; 
and  by  many  high  authorities  of  the  Catholic  Church, 
from  early  down  to  more  modern  times,  it  would  have 
been  deemed  a  simple  and  very  cheap  way  of  set 
tling  such  a  controversy.  This  is  said,  however,  not 
because  exactly  wThat  is  called  spirit-rapping  to-day 
was  known  in  the  Middle  Ages,  but  because  of  its 
being  certainly  akin  to  many  possibilities,  which  the 
Catholic  Church  has  always  maintained,  and  faith  in 
which  has  been  a  large  part  of  that  Church's  vitality. 
The  early  Fathers  of  the  Church  did  not  think  it  to 
be  derogatory  to  their  charge,  even  as  Christian  chiefs, 
to  show  Pagans  how  to  draw  an  inference  from  their 
own  Pagan  prodigies.  And  it  would  have  seemed 
a  grand  chance  to  Henry  More  and  Eichard  Bax 
ter  if  the  opportunity  had  been  offered  of  arguing 
from  spirit-raps  to  the  truth  of  the  Scriptures,  as  is 
abundantly  evident  from  their  many  works  respec 
tively.  It  would  have  been  an  argument,  to  the  nature 
of  which  Pialph  Cudworth  would  have  assented,  and 
for  which  at  once  he  would  have  found  a  place  in  the 
"  Intellectual  System  of  the  Universe."  And  Jeremy 
Taylor,  with  eyes  glancing  from  high  to  low,  and  from 
unearthly  depths  to  prophetic  heights,  and  with  a 
power  of  vision  for  following  the  strange  lines  of 
similitude  which  permeate  creation,  and  which  make 
it  continually,  in  one  quarter  or  another,  glitter  and 


SCIENCE   AND   THE   SUPERNATURAL.  61 

flash  with  the  light  of  unexpected  analogies  ;  Jeremy 
Taylor  —  but  indeed,  as  sanctions  for  the  purpose  in 
view  it  is  superfluous  to  name  any  more  names  than 
those  of  Cudworth  and  More  and  Baxter ;  for  prob 
ably  with  them  would  have  assented  nearly  all  the 
great  men  who  were  eminent  in  theology  in  the  days 
when  theology  itself  was  eminent.  But  now,  before 
attending  to  an  incident  of  yesterday,  let  us  have  in 
mind  what  the  great  Platonist  addressed  to  Lorenzo 
de  Medici  on  the  subject  of  the  Christian  religion :  "  I 
certainly  think  that,  to  us  undeserving,  certain  mirac 
ulous  signs  have  been  divinely  given.  But  all  things 
are  not  shown  to  all :  many  also  are  not  written  down, 
or,  if  written,  are  not  credited,  in  consequence  of  some 
wicked  and  detestable  men  imitating  miracles.  I  have 
heard  of  some  miracles  in  our  own  time,  and  in  our 
city  of  Florence,  which  are  to  be  believed.  Do  not 
be  surprised,  my  Lorenzo,  that  Marsilius  Ficinus, 
studious  of  philosophy,  should  introduce  miracles ; 
for  the  things  of  which  we  write  are  true,  and  it  is 
the  duty  of  a  philosopher  to  confirm  everything  by  its 
own  proper  kind  of  argument." 

A  short  time  since  in  London,  one  evening,  a  gentle 
man  enumerated  jocularly  what  he  thought  were  Yan 
kee  notions,  and  he  named  spirit-rappings.  The  speaker 
was  a  distinguished  man  of  science,  and  religiously  a 
man  after  the  manner  of  Baden  Powell,  with  a  truly 
Christian  heart,  but  on  the  subject  of  miracles  hav 
ing,  perhaps,  the  eyes  of  his  understanding  somewhat 
"  dazed  with  excess  of  light "  from  the  sun  of  science. 
Suddenly  he  was  accosted  by  a  stranger  present,  who 
said,  "  I  am  a  denizen  of  that  New  World ;  and  it  is 


62  SCIENCE  AND   THE   SUPERNATURAL. 

said  that  in  some  places  there,  with  walking  briskly 
over  the  floor  at  certain  times,  a  man  emits  sparks 
from  his  fingers,  with  which  even  gas  can  be  lighted. 
What  would  you  say  to  that  ? "  It  was  replied,  "  Non 
sense  !  it  is  impossible."  Then  said  the  American,  "  It 
was  because  I  expected  that  answer  that  I  asked  you 
the  question.  In  a  scientific  circle,  I  once  knew 
twenty-eight  persons  out  of  thirty  assent  to  that 
same  opinion  which  you  have  now  expressed ;  but 
there  is  not  one  of  them  to-day  that  would.  In  New 
York  certainly,  and  in  Boston,  and  perhaps  all  over 
America,  on  a  frosty  night,  in  a  house  warmed  by  the 
best  modes,  often  a  person  with  walking  briskly  over 
a  carpet,  and  offering  the  knuckle  of  a  finger  to  some 
metallic  object,  has  it  emit  a  blue,  detonating  spark. 
And  now,  by  experience,  as  common  almost  as  that  of 
those  electric  sparks,  I  tell  you  that  what  are  called 
spirit-rappings  are  true  ;  or,  rather,  that  those  rappings 
are  real  which  are  called  spiritual.  And  now  I  will 
ask  you  in  all  honesty  to  answer  me  as  you  would  in 
your  place  in  the  Royal  Society.  And  supposing  that 
you  heard  on  a  table  raps,  the  origin  of  which  you 
could  not  possibly  connect  with  cheating,  nor  yet  with 
science,  as  it  is  understood  to-day;  and  supposing, 
too,  that  these  raps  evinced  as  much  intelligence  as 
a  boy  of  five  years  old, —  what  now  would  you  think  ? " 
Said  the  man  of  science,  thoughtfully,  and  after  a  long 
pause,  "  I  should  say  that,  to  my  present  belief,  it  was 
the  greatest  thing  which  had  happened  since  the  crea 
tion  of  the  world."  To  this  the  American  rejoined, 
"  Those  raps  are  of  far  less  peculiarity  as  to  signifi 
cance  than  you  think.  But,  like  many  other  persons 


SCIENCE  AND   THE   SUPERNATURAL.  63 

in  pursuit  of  a  special  business,  you  have  got  lodged 
in  a  mere  corner  of  the  broad  field  of  knowledge,  and 
where  you  are  capable  of  being  astonished  by  what 
would  be  no  absolute  novelty  to  the  Esquimaux,  or  to 
the  Maoris  of  New  Zealand."  -,- .,  , 

What  is  called  "  rappings  "  is  the  most  common  of 
all  the  spiritualistic  manifestations,  and,  for  the  pur 
pose  for  which  the  thing  is  referred  to  in  the  preced 
ing  anecdote,  it  would  no  doubt  have  been  agreed  to 
by  Baden  Powell  and  his  fellow-philosophers  as  being 
a  sufficient  test.  But  also  for  that  thing  precisely 
which  he  mentions  —  of  the  rising  of  the  table  from  the 
floor  —  there  is  abundant  evidence,  and  some  of  which 
is  of  the  very  best  kind.  Biichner  says  that  because 
of  the  laws  of  nature  "  there  exist  no  supersensual  and 
supernatural  things  and  capacities,  and  they  never  can 
exist " ;  and  so  he  denies  at  once  table-spirits  and  all 
other  spirits,  and  also  the  possibility  of  Eevelation ; 
but  luckily  he  does  also,  with  other  things,  deny  that 
any  one  can  read  an  opaque  sealed  letter,  or  guess  the 
thoughts  of  another ;  for,  besides  being  mesmeric 
experiences,  these  things  are  spiritual  phenomena 
connected  with  the  rappings,  of  the  certainty  of  which 
whole  armies  of  witnesses  could  testify. 

That  these  rappings  do  really  exist,  and  that  they 
are  as  real  as  gravitation,  or  as  thunder  and  lightning, 
may  now  be  fairly  and  properly  assumed,  since  about 
them  it  is  no  longer  a  question  of  the  value  of  testi 
mony.  For  persons  open  to  evidence  on  the  subject, 
one  hundredth  part  of  the  testimony  which  now  exists 
would  be  enough ;  and,  for  those  who  cannot  believe 
the  present  evidence  on  the  matter,  a  thousand  times 


64  SCIENCE   AND  THE  SUPERNATURAL. 

more  evidence  ought  to  be  insufficient,  and  probably 
would  be.  Whatever  it  may  be,  whether  good  or  bad, 
the  thing  is  real.  Multitudes  may  have  had  no  oppor 
tunity  of  personally  knowing  about  it ;  and  many  per 
sons  may  think,  very  properly,  that  they  would  them 
selves  be  none  the  wiser  for  meddling  with  it ;  but  still 
it  may  now  reasonably  be  assumed  as  a  fact.  As  a 
matter  of  evidence,  the  thing  is  not  as  it  was  twenty 
years  ago,  when  it  was  first  known  of  by  rumors  from 
Kochester ;  nor  as  it  was  ten  years  ago ;  nor  even  as  it 
was  five  years  since.  And  science  and  people  who 
believe  by  its  permission  may  as  well  accept  the  fact 
to-day  as  wait  for  fifty  years.  For  if  those  rappings 
should  stop  to-morrow  as  suddenly  as  they  began, 
which  not  improbably  some  day  they  will,  yet  cer 
tainly  in  the  next  century  they  would  be  believed  in 
as  having  been  real,  because  of  the  testimony  and 
literature  and  wide  belief  existing  to-day  on  the  sub 
ject. 

But  perhaps  it  may  be  said  that  mere  unaccountable 
rappings,  even  though  somewhat  intelligent,  are  no 
great  matter.  And  they  are  not  any  great  thing  for 
a  child  learning  the  alphabet,  it  is  true ;  but  they 
become  of  infinite  importance  when,  by  dominant 
science,  they  are  pronounced  to  be  impossible.  A 
scientific  impossibility  proved  to  be  true  is  a  wonder 
ful  thing ;  and  so  wonderful  is  it,  that  under  no  mag- 
nifying-glass  can  it  be  made  to  seem  too  wonderful. 
But  it  is  also  a  wonderful  thing,  with  all  manner  of 
wonders  behind  it,  possibly. 

And  it  may  be  asked  whether  it  is  good  or  devilish. 
For  our  argument  that  does  not  matter.  And  besides, 


SCIENCE  AND   THE   SUPERNATURAL.  "    65 

that  question  implies  what  has  not  been  at  all  assumed, 
—  that  the  rappings  are  connected  with  the  spiritual 
world.  But,  with  a  view  to  the  next  question,  let  it 
be  allowed  that  they  are  so  connected.  And  now  per 
haps  it  is  asked  whether  they  are  Christian  or  Mo 
hammedan.  And  the  answer  is,  that  they  are  both, 
just  as  talking  is.  They  are  a  way  of  conversing 
with  spirits  who  may  be  good  or  bad,  wise  or  silly, 
and  through  which  a  man  may  have  some  such  ex 
perience  as  he  might  have  in  his  native  town,  if  he 
should,  after  a  long  absence,  go  into  a  crowded  hall, 
and  from  a  gallery,  in  the  dark,  talk  with  voices  down 
below. 

But  an  argument  on  Spiritualism  started  from  "  the 
rappings  "  would  be  about  the  same  as  though,  because 
of  having  learned  the  first  letter  of  the  alphabet,  a  man 
should  think  to  read  Hebrew,  and  want  to  argue  the 
value  of  the  Mazoretic  points,  or  the  nature  of  proph 
ecy,  or  the  comparative  antiquity,  respectively,  of 
the  various  parts  of  the  Book  of  Genesis.  Spiritual 
ism,  as  it  is  called,  is  a  field  as  broad  nearly  as  the 
presence  of  the  human  race,  and  as  long  almost  as  the 
ages  themselves  have  been.  It  illustrates  the  pneu- 
matology  of  the  Scriptures  ;  it  is  a  key  to  the  inner 
most  rooms  of  the  temples  of  Greece ;  and  it  avails 
for  the  better  understanding  of  Plato.  It  solves  enig 
mas  as  to  Mahomet,  and  it  accounts  for  the  career  of 
Joan  Dare.  It  is  the  light  by  which  in  these  days  to 
read  intelligently  the  history  of  Salem  witchcraft,  the 
Journal  of  George  Fox,  and  the  account  of  Edward 
Irving  and  the  unknown  tongues.  It  is  enriched  by 
the  study  of  the  Talmud,  and  not  confused ;  and  it 


66  SCIENCE   AND   THE   SUPERNATURAL. 

answers  for  information,  when  it  is  tried  on  the  re 
ligion  of  almost  any  primitive  tribe,  which  has  been 
reported  upon,  even  the  very  latest. 

Spiritualism  is  of  many  grades  ;  and  it  may  be  con 
nected  with  every  sect  in  Christendom,  and  with  every 
sect  that  follows  Mahomet,  with  Buddhism,  and  with 
Brahminism.  It  is  the  silliness  of  silly  people  to-day, 
multitudes  of  them  ;  and  it  is  the  wisdom  of  wise  men, 
not  a  few.  Spiritualism,  as  intercourse  with  spirits, 
has  its  dangers,  and  in  ancient  times  was  helplessly 
prone  to  idolatry ;  and  it  was  on  this  account,  prob 
ably,  that  it  was  guarded,  limited,  and  directed  for  the 
Jews  by  severe  legislation.  But  like  the  circumnavi 
gation  of  the  globe,  by  which,  with  sailing  straight  on, 
man  goes  out  on  one  side  of  the  world,  and  returns 
on  the  other,  so  what  was  the  peril  of  the  ancient 
Jews  religiously  seems  now  to  stand  opposed  to  that 
idolatry  of  science  by  which  the  laws  of  nature  are 
pleaded  against  the  miracles  of  God. 

A  strange  land  is  that  of  which  glimpses  are  got 
through  Spiritualism  ;  a  border-land  between  this 
world  and  the  next ;  a  region  whence  spiritual  causes 
can  start  material  effects,  and  wherein  the  laws  of 
Nature  are  in  some  degree  pliant  to  spiritual  agents, 
and  along  the  line  of  which,  with  strange  consequences, 
spirit  and  matter  interosculate  through  their  respective 
laws ;  a  region  where  it  is  suddenly  bright,  unearthly 
light,  and  then  as  suddenly  darkness,  and  wherein 
easily  a  man  gets  bewildered  and  befooled ;  a  realm 
where  flits  the  will-o'-the-wisp,  and  where  fog-banks 
roll,  where  often  truth  looks  like  illusion,  and  where, 
too,  illusions  are  often  taken  for  truth  ;  a  field  where 


SCIENCE   AND   THE   SUPERNATURAL.  67 

light  is  reflected  and  refracted  in  a  hundred  ways,  and 
so  as  to  confuse  sometimes  like  darkness  itself;  a  land 
whence  voices  call,  sweet  and  saintly  perhaps,  but  lia 
ble  in  a  moment  to  be  cut  short  like  telegraphic  wires, 
and  to  be  continued  perhaps  by  impostors  ;  a  region 
of  marvel,  with  gazing  at  which  many  persons  have 
found  themselves  actuated  as  though  by  enchantment ; 
a  realm  in  creation,  which  sceptics  may  ridicule,  and 
which  some  good  Christians  may  ignorantly  deny,  but 
in  connection  with  which  exist  pathways  of  thought, 
and  across  which  are  distinctly  discernible  objects, 
which  theology  ought  to  know  of. 

There  is  a  proverb,  that  "  any  stick  is  good  enough 
to  beat  a  dog  with."  And  the  first  stick  out  of  the 
thicket  of  Spiritualism  silences  the  argument  short 
and  sharp,  and  as  incessant  as  the  barking  of  a  dog, 
which  has  been  kept  up  so  long,  and  especially  in 
Germany,  about  the  Order  of  Nature. 

By  the  rappings  which  come  upon  a  table  in  the 
presence  of  a  medium,  the  laws  of  nature  call  out 
against  the  philosophy  of  Baden  Powell ;  and  they 
protest  against  the  notion  of  Buckle,  as  to  there  being 
nothing  new  to  be  expected;  and  they  deride  the 
contemptuous  self-complacency  of  Froude  ;  and  they 
explode  the  dreary  vantage-ground  whence  Biichner 
would  deny  the  immortality  of  the  soul. 

And  now,  perhaps,  some  one  will  wonder  whether 
the  writer  thinks  that  his  argument  is  a  cure  for 
scepticism.  For  every  variety  of  scepticism,  he  cer 
tainly  does  not  think  that  it  can  be.  There  is  scepti 
cism  which  is  a  part  of  good  sense.  And  of  scepticism 
as  a  mental  disease  there  are  degrees,  just  as  there  are 


68  SCIENCE   AND   THE   SUPERNATURAL. 

varioloid,  small-pox,  and  confluent  small-pox.  There 
is  a  mild  scepticism,  which  is  simply  the  spirit  of  the 
age,  and  there  is  a  scepticism  which  is  the  result  of 
undue  constitutional  tendency  combined  with  the  tem 
per  of  the  times  ;  and  of  the  same  thing,  viewed  as  a  dis 
order,  there  is  an  extreme  degree,  which  may  be  called 
confluent  scepticism,  and  which  mostly  is  incurable.  It 
is  more  common  in  Paris  than  in  this  neighborhood. 
It  is  the  state  of  a  person  with  whom  everything 
runs  to  doubt.  It  is  a  mental  state  in  which  a  man 
might  see  a  miracle,  only  to  wonder  whether  it  could 
be  done  again  ;  and  who  would  not  believe  either, 
though  one  rose  from  the  dead;  and  who,  if  he  saw 
nine  men  out  of  ten  raised  from  the  dead,  would  only 
ifcubt  nine  times  the  more,  as  to  whether  the  remain 
ing  tenth  man  could  possibly  be  raised.  This  is  con 
fluent  scepticism ;  and  it  is  what  converts  even  rem 
edies  themselves  into  disease. 

There  have  certainly,  however,  been  intellectual 
Christians,  who  had  been  caught  at  their  studies  by 
the  spirit  of  scepticism  and  been  manacled  by  the 
logic  of  science,  and  who  had  been  unable  to  get 
themselves  exorcised  or  liberated  by  the  greatest  di 
vines  of  Protestantism,  who  yet  have  felt  themselves 
freed  by  the  first  sound  of  those  unaccountable  rap- 
pings,  and  able  to  enter  "  into  the  temple  walking  and 
leaping,  and  praising  God"  ;  being  enabled  to  pray  and 
trust  and  hope,  by  having  learned  that  the  Order  of 
Nature  is  not  everything,  and  that  their  souls  may 
perhaps  be  free  of  it,  and  free  for  something  higher. 
And  these  persons  have  continued  in  the  same  state 
of  joy  and  freedom  and  holy  hope,  comparatively  care- 


SCIENCE    AND  THE    SUPERNATURAL.  69 

less  as  to  whether  the  rappings  had  been  spiritual  or 
demoniac  ;  being  only  too  happy  with  simply  believ 
ing  them  to  be  something  supernatural,  something  to 
wards  a  proof,  that  perhaps  the  heavens  are  not  brass 
against  us,  and  that  the  Order  of  Nature  does  not 
close  about  our  souls  like  a  living  tomb. 

That  the  writer  hereof  should  ever  have  had  this  to 
say,  of  his  own  knowledge,  would  have  seemed  to  him 
in  those  days,  when  his  faith  was  according  to  Mill's 
Analysis  of  the  Human  Mind,  to  be  just  as  unlikely  as 
his  becoming  a  dancing  dervish  ;  or  a  silent,  barefooted 
Trappist ;  or  a  turbaned  hadji,  squatting  on  the  ground, 
and  intent  on  the  Koran,  all  day  long,  at  Mecca ;  or  a 
missionary  to  the  ten  lost  tribes  of  Israel ;  or  a  Eoman 
prelate  pleading  with  cardinals,  against  the  Devil's  ad 
vocate,  and  for  the  canonization  of  monks  and  nuns. 
But  the  world  is  wide,  and  the  world  of  thought  is 
wider  still.  And  wider  and  wider  still  it  grows,  and  at 
an  ever-growing  pace,  in  these  days,  when  with  many 
running  to  and  fro,  knowledge  is  increased;  when 
every  ancient  history  is  being  drawn  forth,  to  be 
perused  afresh  by  every  light  which  can  be  got  to 
bear  upon  it ;  when  every  savage  tribe  is  being  re 
spectfully  solicited  for  its  traditions  ;  when  the  mon 
asteries  of  Mount  Sinai  and  along  the  frontier  of 
Christendom  are  yielding  up  their  ancient  parchments 
to  enthusiastic  scholars ;  when  the  King  of  Siam  sud 
denly  stands  forth,  an  eminent  astronomer,  as  the 
shadow  of  a  great  eclipse  comes  along  to  cross  his  king 
dom  ;  when,  too,  the  old  foundations  of  Jerusalem  are 
being  carefully  explored  by  an  English  Commission ; 
and  when,  also,  the  Great  Pyramid  is  being  questioned, 


70  SCIENCE   AND   THE   SUPERNATURAL 

stone  by  stone,  as  to  those  singular  secrets  of  which  it 
is  believed  to  be  the  depository. 

How  much  of  what  is  knowledge  to-day  will  be 
ignorance  to-morrow  !  And  how  certainly  truths, 
which  in  this  age  are  taken  for  errors,  will  subserve 
the  pioneers  of  thought  in  the  age  to  come !  But  in 
this  world,  where  light  leads  up  to  a  wall  of  darkness, 
and  where  darkness  yields  indeed,  but  only  recedes, 
scarcely  could  man  dare  to  advise  with  man,  but  that 
certainly  all  things  human  must  be  rounded  by  the 
infinite  mercy  of  God. 


MIEACLES    AND    DOCTKINE. 

OFTEN  a  painful  calculation  of  the  orbit  of  a 
comet  has  been  falsified,  because  of  some  heaven 
ly  bodies  which  had  not  been  taken  into  the  account, 
and  therefore  because  of  disturbing  forces  which  had 
not  been  allowed  for.  And  often  an  inquiry  in  phi 
losophy  has  been  futile,  because  of  disturbing  forces, 
which  had  not  been  allowed  for  from  theology  or  his 
tory.  On  the  subject  of  supernaturalism,  many  per 
sons  are  prejudiced  by  what  they  suppose  to  be  their 
position  as  Christians.  They  lean  on  faith,  as  they 
think ;  and  lean  so,  as  they  think,  on  certain  ancient 
facts  of  which  Palestine  was  the  scene.  But  there  are 
other  persons  who  not  only  have  faith,  but  who  are 
themselves,  as  it  were,  possessed  by  it.  They  say  for 
themselves,  like  Peter,  "  Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  Son 
of  the  living  God "  ;  and  to  them  this  revelation  has 
been  made,  not  indeed  apart  from  all  agencies  of  flesh 
and  blood,  but  yet  from  the  Father  which  is  in  heaven. 
And  these  believers  find  themselves  upon  a  rock,  joy 
ful  and  curious  spectators,  who  know,  as  they  look 
around,  that  whatsoever  things  are  true  are  really  in 
their  favor  ;  and  that  the  gates  of  hell  can  never  pre 
vail  against  their  standing-place,  whatever  hosts  or 
forms  or  blasts  may  be  let  out.  And  certainly  before 
all  things,  men  have  to  be  true ;  for  never  can  the 


72  MIRACLES   AND   DOCTRINE. 

whole  body  be  full  of  light,  Christian  or  any  other, 
unless  the  eye  be  single. 

How  often  has  there  been  willingness  to  have  the 
subject  of  miracles  grievously  misunderstood  rather 
than  have  it  scrutinized  !  But  now,  there  is  no  really 
wise  man  but  will  say,  "  On  any  book  which  is  worth 
reading,  let  us  have  all  the  light  which  we  can.  And 
if  the  Bible  be,  in  any  way,  the  word  of  God,  and  it 
be  allowed  us  to  read  it,  then  let  all  the  light  of  God's 
world  come  in  upon  it,  and  it  will  only  be  the  plainer 
and  the  clearer.  Truth  forever,  — '  the  glorious  gospel 
of  the  blessed  God!'" 

And  there  are  theological  zealots,  wTho  think  that 
they  can  help  a  sacred  cause  by  means,  which  one 
side  of  the  mind  does  not  wish  the  other  side  to  know 
of,  by  such  means  as  the  understanding  would  keep 
secret  from  the  conscience.  As  connected  with  the 
Scriptures,  how  much  has  been  said  and  done  which 
was  not  candid  !  But  whether  statesmen  or  cardinals, 
or  preachers  to  the  heathen,  —  no  matter  who  they  are, 
or  under  what  pretext,  —  no  man  can  sow  the  wind, 
and  not  leave  the  whirlwind  to  be  reaped.  Help  out 
the  cause  of  God,  help  it  by  any  other  means  than  the 
fairest,  help  it  by  the  wisdom  of  this  world  !  Remem 
ber  what  happened  to  Uzza  for  putting  forth  his  hand 
to  support  the  ark  of  God,  when  that  seat  of  mirac 
ulous  power  seemed  to  shake  upon  the  cart.  If  a 
cause  be  of  God,  it  will  not  bear  to  be  propped  by  the 
hand  of  a  little  faith.  And  for  its  support  finally,  no 
means  will  avail  but  what  are  holy. 

And  now  let  the  modern  stumbling-block  as  to 
miracles,  be  still  further  considered  than  it  was  in  the 


MIRACLES   AND  DOCTRINE.  73 

preceding  chapter.  The  common  presentation  as  to 
miracles  is,  that  they  are  acts  suspending  the  laws  of 
nature ;  that  suspensions  of  the  laws  of  nature  are 
impossible,  except  by  the  direct  permission  of  God; 
that  God  never  would  suspend  his  laws,  except  for  a 
purpose  greater  than  the  laws  themselves,  —  the  reve 
lation,  that  is  to  say,  of  himself ;  and  thus  that  all  mira 
cles  reported  outside  of  the  Bible  may  be  instantly 
denied.  This  is  the  argument  of  the  best  book  of  its 
kind, —  that  of  Hugh  Farmer  on  Miracles.  But  at  the 
very  beginning  it  begs  the  question,  in  its  way  of  de 
fining  a  miracle,  as  being  a  suspension  of  the  laws  of 
nature.  "When  the  apostles  and  prophets  showed  signs 
and  wonders,  or  wrote  about  them,  they  never  talked 
about  suspending  the  laws  of  nature.  And  really,  our 
selves,  we  do  not  know  but  what  we  should  call  a  mira 
cle  might  be,  not  an  act  suspending  some  one  law  of 
nature,  but  simply  an  act  using,  in  some  new  way, 
another  law  very  familiar  perhaps,  or  very  occult. 
The  laws  of  nature,  —  this  is  a  convenient  phrase  for 
ordinary  use.  And  for  the  purposes  of  natural  sci 
ence,  and  restricted  to  such  ends  as  those  of  geology, 
chemistry,  and  astronomy,  investigation  may  properly 
proceed,  on  the  supposition  of  the  laws  of  nature. 
But  when  the  suspension  of  the  laws  of  nature  is 
argued  about,  for  purposes  not  geological  or  chemical, 
but  divine,  then  it  behooves  us  to  think  more  exactly 
what  it  is  which  is  talked  of. 

A  certain  manifestation  in  nature  is  called  a  law ; 

but  it  is  so  called  by  simply  a  figure  of  speech,  derived 

from  the  manner  in  which  men  mutually  arrange  their 

affairs.     And  yet  often  there  is  great  stress  laid  on  the 

4 


74  MIRACLES   AND  DOCTRINE. 

phrase  "  laws  of  nature  "  for  just  that  very  purpose,  in 
regard  to  which  chiefly  it  is  objectionable.  And  this 
is  done  as  though  it  were  supposed  that,  as  the  com 
mandments  were  written  in  Horeb,  one,  two,  three, 
ten  commandments,  on  tables  of  stone,  so  laws  of 
nature  were  devised  and  instituted  by  God,  for  shap 
ing  the  void  and  formless  world,  —  first,  the  law  of  at 
traction,  and  then  that  of  gravitation ;  and  next  one 
chemical  affinity,  and  then  another.  For  many  and 
most  purposes,  we  do  well  to  speak  of  the  laws  of 
nature  ;  but  there  are  some  purposes,  in  view  of  which 
we  are  to  remember  that  we  talk  about  the  laws  of 
nature  only  by  a  figure  of  speech,  and  when  indeed 
it  would  be  better  that  we  should  be  speaking  of  the 
properties  of  nature,  the  qualities  of  nature,  or  the 
spirit  of  nature. 

Suspension  of  the  laws  of  nature !  The  force  of 
the  phrase,  as  an  objection  to  the  possibility  of  a  mira 
cle,  vanishes  as  soon  as  ever  it  is  remembered  that  by 
the  laws  of  nature,  we  do  not  really  mean  what  can 
be  broken  one  by  one,  or  what  can  be  broken  at  all ; 
do  not  at  all  mean  enactments  of  God,  but  simply  the 
spirit  of  nature.  To  define  a  miracle,  then,  as  being 
an  act  by  which  a  law  of  nature  is  suspended,  is  not 
according  to  true  philosophy.  Also,  it  is  being  wise 
beyond  what  is  written ;  or,  rather,  it  is  very  unwise, 
and  especially  on  the  part  of  the  advocates  of  Scrip 
tural  narratives;  for  the  time  when  the  miracles  of 
the  Bible  were  wrought,  and  when  they  were  written 
of,  was  many  hundreds  of  years  before  what  is  called 
the  discovery  of  the  laws  of  nature,  and  longer  still, 
perhaps,  before  the  invention  of  the  phrase,  "  Suspen 
sion  of  the  laws  of  nature." 


MIRACLES  AND  DOCTRINE.  75 

One  of  the  early  miracles  of  Christianity  was  on  a 
man  "  which  sat  for  alms  at  the  Beautiful  Gate  of  the 
temple."  Peter,  having  been  entreated  for  something, 
did  not  say,  "  I  hereby  suspend,  over  thee  and  in  thee, 
laws  of  nature,  by  number,  one,  nine,  and  thirteen; 
and  now  thou  art  well."  And  it  has  been  very  incau 
tious  work  in  controversy  to  commit  Peter  as  though 
he  had  said  such  a  thing,  or  anything  at  all  like  it. 
What  Peter  actually  did  say  was,  "  Silver  and  gold 
have  I  none ;  but  such  as  I  have  give  I  thee :  in  the 
name  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Nazareth,  rise  up  and  walk." 
As  a  preliminary  to  this,  however,  is  written  what  may 
have  been  directly  connected  with  the  miracle,  that 
"  Peter,  fastening  his  eyes  upon  him  with  John,  said, 
Look  on  us."  There  is  no  man  but,  as  to  quality,  is 
more  than  all  the  laws  of  nature  put  together.  And 
so  it  may  well  be  that  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  of 
Nazareth  may  have  been  a  symbol,  an  invocation,  a 
channel  of  power  which  may  have  been  natural  indeed 
as  to  its  ultimate  effect  in  healing,  but  supernatural  as 
to  origin  and  intensity. 

The  Jews  and  all  the  disciples  of  Christ  regarded 
miracles  as  being  of  various  degrees,  and  as  differing 
in  magnitude  and  decisiveness.  And,  in  their  defini 
tion  of  miracles,  Catholic  theologians  have  degrees  of 
greater  and  less,  and  always  have  had.  In  this  man 
ner  of  estimating  miracles,  there  would  seem  to  be  in 
volved  another  apprehension  of  them,  than  as  though 
they  must  necessarily  all  of  them  argue  equally  the 
divine  will,  be  all  of  them  the  pronunciation  of  God, 
and  each  one  of  them  just  as  emphatic  and  distinct 
and  peremptory  as  another. 


76  MIRACLES   AND   DOCTRINE. 

It  is  often  argued  as  though  miracles  were  credible 
only  as  happening  among  persons  in  covenant  with 
God,  through  Abraham  or  through  Christ.  Yet  the 
fullest  account  of  prophetic  vision  in  the  Scriptures  is 
connected  with  Balaam,  a  resident  of  Moab.  And,  of 
all  the  prophetic  dreams  in  the  Old  Testament,  the 
most  wonderful  was  that  with  which  the  Egyptian 
Pharaoh  was  inspired,  and  wdiich  Joseph  interpreted ; 
and  those  with  which  Nebuchadnezzar  had  his  spirit 
troubled,  and  which  were  connected  by  Daniel  with  "  a 
God  in  heaven  that  revealeth  secrets."  And  at  the 
birth  of  the  Saviour,  if  wise  men  arrived  at  Jerusalem 
from  the  East,  guided  by  a  star  spiritually  discerned, 
it  was  because,  apart  from  the  stock  of  Israel,  there 
were  persons  susceptible  of  miraculous  instruction,  and 
favored  with  it.  Dean  Stanley  says  truly,  in  his  work 
on  the  Jewish  Church,  that,  unlike  the  temper  of  the 
present  age,  the  Scriptures  are  always  ready  to  acknowl 
edge  divine  inspiration  outside  of  the  chosen  people, 
and  so  to  admit  the  higher  spirits  of  every  age  and 
every  nation  among  the  teachers  of  the  Universal 
Church. 

It  will  help  us  to  understand  better  the  significance 
of  a  miracle  among  the  Jews,  if  we  remember  that 
they  were  instructed  not  to  follow  always  even  an  ac 
knowledged  miracle.  "  If  there  arise  among  you  a 
prophet  or  a  dreamer  of  dreams,  and  giveth  thee  a 
sign  or  a  wonder,  and  the  sign  or  wonder  come  to  pass 
whereof  he  spake  unto  thee,  saying,  Let  us  go  after 
other  gods  which  thou  hast  not  known,  and  let  us 
serve  them ;  thou  shalt  not  hearken  unto  the  words  of 
that  prophet  or  that  dreamer  of  dreams ;  for  the  Lord 


MIRACLES   AND   DOCTRINE.  77 

your  God  proveth  yon,  to  know  whether  yon  love  the 
Lord  your  God  with  all  yonr  heart  and  with  all  your 
soul.  Ye  shall  walk  after  the  Lord  yonr  God,  and  fear 
him,  and  keep  his  commandments,  and  obey  his  voice, 
and  ye  shall  serve  him,  and  cleave  unto  him.  And 
that  prophet  or  that  dreamer  of  dreams  shall  be  put  to 
death,  because  he  hath  spoken  to  turn  you  away  from 
the  Lord  your  God,  which  brought  you  out  of  the  land 
of  Egypt."  A  miracle  might,  then,  be  acknowledged, 
and  yet  its  cogency  be  denied.  And  even  an  acknowl 
edged  prophet  was  not  to  be  followed  in  every  direc 
tion.  In  the  Book  of  Exodus,  we  read  that  one  miracle 
after  another,  which  Moses  showed  to  Pharaoh,  the 
magicians  repeated  by  their  enchantments ;  and  that 
it  was  only  when  their  power  was  surpassed  by  the 
fourth  miracle  of  Moses  that  "  the  magicians  said  unto 
Pharaoh,  This  is  the  finger  of  God."  And,  as  we  learn 
from  what  happened  to  Ahab,  even  four  hundred 
prophets  might  conjointly  prophecy  untruly,  and  that 
through  a  lying  spirit  in  the  mouth  of  them  all,  and 
of  the  Lord's  direct  permission.  It  would  seem,  too, 
that,  simultaneously  with  the  mission  of  Jesus,  a  mir 
acle  might  be  wrought,  to  which  the  apostles  could 
demur.  "  And  John  answered  him,  saying,  Master,  we 
saw  one  casting  out  devils  in  thy  name,  and  he  follow- 
eth  not  us  ;  and  we  forbade  him  because  he  followeth 
not  us.  But  Jesus  said,  Forbid  him  not ;  for  there  is 
no  man  which  shall  do  a  miracle  in  my  name  that  can 
lightly  speak  evil  of  me.  For  he  that  is  not  against 
us  is  on  our  part." 

It  is  to  be  noticed  that  a  miracle,  simply  as  a  mira 
cle,  Jesus  probably  never  wrought ;  and  Lightfoot,  in- 


78  MIRACLES  AND   DOCTRINE. 

deed,  says  so  absolutely,  and  perhaps  correctly.  Jesus 
works  miracles  out  of  pity,  for  love,  as  illustrations  or 
corroborations  of  doctrine,  but  not  for  the  sake  of  the 
marvellous  merely.  And  further  it  would  seem  that 
when  he  was  sometimes  invited  and  sometimes  chal 
lenged  to  evince  his  Mesiahship  by  showing  a  sign,  he 
never  consented,  but  called  that  manner  of  testing 
him  the  craving  of  an  evil  and  adulterous  generation. 
His  words,  when  trusted  by  a  sick  man,  became  a  mir 
acle  of  health ;  when  uttered  in  prayer  at  the  tomb, 
quickened  the  dead  with  life ;  and  when  breathed  in 
blessing  over  five  loaves,  multiplied  them  into  food  for 
five  thousand  persons  and  twelve  baskets  full  of  frag 
ments.  Even  the  hem  of  his  garment,  a  widow  could 
touch  in  a  crowd,  and  find  herself  healed  with  so 
doing.  Signs  and  wonders  went  out  from  him  as  fast 
as  words,  and  as  easily,  too,  sometimes.  From  side  to 
side  of  the  sea  of  Galilee,  and  from  Capernaum  to  Je 
rusalem,  he  was  to  be  tracked  by  his  miracles.  There 
was  a  miracle  for  the  Eoman  centurion,  and  a  miracle 
for  the  poor  Syrophenician  woman ;  but  a  miracle  never 
for  those  who  demanded  it  as  such,  for  Pharisees 
and  Sadducees  tempting  him,  for  Jews  demanding  of 
him,  "  What  sign  showest  thou  unto  us  ? "  Once,  in 
the  midst  of  a  great  crowd,  he  was  asked,  "  What  sign 
showest  thou,  then,  that  wre  may  see  and  believe  thee  ? 
what  dost  thou  work  ?  "  But,  for  answer,  he  asserted 
that  his  doctrine  was  greater  than  the  miracle  of  man 
na  in  the  wilderness ;  that  persons  to  be  converted 
would  follow  laws  of  the  spirit,  rather  than  the  attrac 
tion  of  a  sign ;  and  that  himself  he  was  a  sign  and 
was  also  bread,  and  that  more  wonderful  than  the 


MIRACLES  AND   DOCTRINE.  79 

manna  of  the  wilderness.  It  is  consonant  with  what 
precedes  that  St.  Paul  classes  miracles  below  teaching ; 
though  of  course  it  was  not  ordinary  instruction,  for 
which  teachers  were  ranked  next  after  prophets, — 
"And  God  hath  set  some  in  the  church  ;  first,  apostles ; 
secondarily,  prophets ;  thirdly,  teachers ;  after  that,  mir 
acles  ;  then  gifts  of  healing,  helps,  governments,  diver 
sities  of  tongues." 

A  miracle  may  be  convincing ;  but  evidently,  at  the 
best,  it  is  not  the  best  occasion  of  conversion.  There 
is  a  happier,  better  reason  for  conviction  about  Christ 
than  even  seeing  the  greatest  miracle  with  one's  own 
eyes,  or  our  Saviour  would  never  have  said  to  Thomas, 
as  he  felt  of  his  hands  and  side,  after  his  crucifixion 
and  resurrection,  "  Thomas,  because  thou  hast  seen  me, 
thou  hast  believed  :  blessed  are  they  that  have  not  seen, 
and  yet  have  believed."  And  just  as  Moses  forewarned 
the  Jews  against  following  the  lead  of  every  sign  or 
wonder,  so  does  Jesus  Christ  forewarn  the  Church: 
"  There  shall  arise  false  Christs  and  false  prophets,  and 
shall  show  great  signs  and  wonders ;  insomuch,  that,  if 
it  were  possible,  they  shall  deceive  the  very  elect."  The 
thoughts  of  St.  Paul  were  familiar  with  Providence  as 
manifesting  itself  among  Jews  and  Gentiles,  as  evin 
cing  itself  in  the  world's  conflicts,  as  summoning  its 
subjects  to  put  on  the  whole  armor  of  God,  for  a  fight 
of  a  wider  meaning  than  they  would  perhaps  well 
perceive,  as  being  not  against  flesh  and  blood  merely, 
furious  Jews,  tyrannical  magistrates,  or  Caesars  calling 
themselves  gods  ;  but  as  being  "  against  principalities, 
against  powers,  against  the  rulers  of  the  darkness  of 
this  world,  against  spiritual  wickedness  in  high  places." 


80  MIRACLES   AND  DOCTRINE. 

And  so,  writing  to  the  Thessalonians  in  the  spirit  of 
prophecy,  he  warns  them  of  that  wicked  one  to  be  re 
vealed,  "  whose  coming  is  after  the  working  of  Satan, 
with  all  power  and  signs  and  lying  wonders."  And 
St.  John  writes  on  the  same  understanding  and  to  the 
same  purpose  :  "  Beloved,  believe  not  every  spirit,  but 
try  the  spirits  whether  they  are  of  God ;  because  many 
false  prophets  are  gone  out  into  the  world."  In  the 
Book  of  Revelation,  we  have  the  visions  of  one  in 
the  Spirit,  of  one  who  not  merely  saw  further  on  than 
common  eyes,  but  who  discerned  also  the  essential 
characters  of  coming  powers  and  ages.  And  listening 
to  the  Apocalypse,  as  it  is  disclosed,  we  hear  of  how 
"  the  beast  was  taken,  and  with  him  the  false  prophet, 
that  wrought  miracles  before  him."  And  more  dis 
tinctly,  too,  we  are  told  that  there  were  to  be  expected 
"  the  spirits  of  devils  working  miracles,  which  go  forth 
unto  the  kings  of  the  earth  and  of  the  whole  world." 
Miracles  actually  to  be  looked  for  from  the  spirits  of 
demons  !  Let  that  be  remembered. 

But  here  some  persons  may  ask  anxiously,  "  Can  it 
be  that  there  should  be  a  miracle,  any  kind  of  mira 
cle,  and  the  worker  of  it  not  be  approved  of  God  ?  Can 
there  be  a  prophet  ever,  once  in  even  a  thousand  or 
two  thousand  years,  and  he  be  a  false  man  ?  How 
shall  we  know  the  false  prophet  ? "  To  this  it  may  be 
answered,  that  for  all  the  ends  of  holiness  and  faith 
we  may  know  them  by  the  words  of  Christ,  "  Ye  shall 
know  them  by  their  fruits."  There  is,  too,  a  capability 
in  man,  which,  with  the  quickening  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
becomes  discerning  of  spirits  ;  ability,  that  is,  for  judg 
ing  of  what  spirit  a  prophet's  inspiration  is.  Lightfoot 


MIRACLES   AND   DOCTRINE.  81 

supposes  that  in  the  first  age  of  the  Church  it  was  al 
most  impossible  to  distinguish  between  magical,  dia 
bolical  spirits  and  their  operations  and  the  operations 
and  utterances  of  the  Holy  Ghost ;  but  that  the  diffi 
culty  was  remedied  by  there  having  been  among  the 
early  disciples,  a  gift  for  the  "  discerning  of  spirits."  It- 
may  have  been  that  that  gift  was  specially  imparted 
and  specially  effective  for  times,  when  almost  it  was 
possible  for  the  very  elect  to  be  deceived.  But  now 
and  always  with  Christians,  for  discerning  false  proph 
ets,  seducing  spirits,  and  false  teachers,  the  words  of 
Christ  —  uttered,  too,  for  this  very  purpose  —  are 
enough :  "  Ye  shall  know  them  by  their  fruits.  Do 
men  gather  grapes  of  thorns,  or  figs  of  thistles  ? " 

It  would  be  well  for  us,  no  doubt,  to  get  back  into 
the  primitive  feeling  about  the  miracles  of  the  Bible. 
It  may  be  that  really  ourselves  we  falsify  the  miracles, 
,by  making  them  more  peculiar  than  they  are.  It  may 
be  that  we  miss  the  meaning  of  a  miracle,  by  thinking 
that  miracles  are  not  only  improbable  at  present,  but 
impossible,  and  one  just  as  much  so  as  another,  the 
healing  of  the  sick  as  the  raising  of  the  dead.  And 
it  is  perhaps  only  with  knowing  how  a  false  prophet 
might  possibly  have  a  miracle  work  its  way  through 
his  nature,  that  we  can  even  recognize  the  channel  by 
which  the  Spirit  flowed  in  upon  Christ,  not  by  measure, 
but  as  a  stream  of  truth  and  miracles.  In  the  Scrip 
tures,  then,  we  find  that  by  our  position  as  Christians 
we  are  not  committed  to  a  denial  of  the  miraculous 
in  any  age ;  and  we  also  find  that,  indeed,  the  early 
Christians  were  taught  to  expect  it,  even  aside  from 
Christian  uses.  What,  then,  is  the  proof  of  Christian- 
4*  F 


82  MIRACLES  AND   DOCTRINE. 

ity  ?  and  what  are  the  miracles  as  evidences  ?  The 
answers  to  these  questions  shall  be  in  the  words  of 
others ;  and  they  are  all  the  better  for  the  purpose, 
that  they  were  not  written  for  an  exigency,  or  to  meet 
any  modern  difficulty  on  the  subject  of  miracles  :  and 
so  there  shall  be  no  quotation  here  of  the  opinions  of 
Arnold,  Newman,  and  others  of  the  present  age. 

John  Owen  of  the  seventeenth  century,  in  a  manly 
tone,  which  gladdens  the  reader,  says,  if  one  would 
begin  with  the  miracles  as  the  foundations  of  Chris 
tianity,  that  he  can  get  no  tolerable  assurance  that 
any  such  miracles  were  ever  wrought.  Does  he  doubt 
them  then  ?  Owen  doubt  them  !  No  more  than  any 
person  doubts  the  sun  because  he  cannot  touch  it. 
Hear  what  he  says  further :  "  Many  writers  of  the 
Scriptures  wrought  no  miracles.  And  by  this  rule 
their  writings  are  left  to  shift  for  themselves.  Mira 
cles,  indeed,  were  necessary  to  take  off  all  prejudices 
from  the  person  that  brought  any  new  doctrine  from 
God ;  but  the  doctrine  still  evidenced  itself.  The 
apostles  converted  many  where  they  wrought  no 
miracle ;  and,  where  they  did  so  work,  yet  they  for 
their  doctrine,  and  not  the  doctrine  on  their  account, 
was  received.  And  the  Scripture  now  hath  no  less 
evidence  and  demonstration  in  itself  of  its  divinity 
than  it  had  when  by  them  it  was  preached."  He 
adds,  that  they  who  do  not  receive  the  Bible  on  this 
ground  will  never  receive  it  on  any  ground  as  they 
ought.  Says  his  contemporary,  Eichard  Baxter :  "  I 
more  sensibly  perceive  that  the  Spirit  is  the  great  wit 
ness  of  Christ  and  Christianity  to  the  world.  And 
though  the  folly  of  fanatics  tempted  me  long  to  over- 


MIRACLES  AND  DOCTRINE.  83 

look  the  strength  of  this  testimony  of  the  Spirit,  while 
they  placed  it  in  a  certain  internal  assertion  or  enthu 
siastic  inspiration,  yet  now  I  see  that  the  Holy  Ghost, 
in  another  manner,  is  the  witness  of  Christ,  and  his 
agent  in  the  world.  The  Spirit  in  the  prophets  was 
his  first  witness ;  and  the  Spirit  by  miracles  was  the 
second ;  and  the  Spirit  by  renovation,  sanctification, 
illumination,  and  consolation  assimilating  the  soul  to 
Christ  and  heaven,  is  the  continued  witness  to  all  true 
believers.  "And  if  any  man  have  not  the  spirit  of 
Christ,  the  same  is  none  of  his."  Even  as  the  rational 
soul  in  the  child  is  the  inherent  witness  or  evidence 
that  he  is  the  child  of  rational  parents." 

Baxter  and  Owen  were  men  of  other  days  than  these, 
and  ministers  of  another  training  than  the  ten  thou 
sand  clergymen  in  England,  who  were  lately  made  to 
tremble  and  petition  their  bishops,  in  consequence 
of  a  volume  of  "  Essays  and  Keviews,"  to  which  four 
or  five  of  their  fellows  had  been  accessory.  All  this 
modern  talk,  about  miracles  being  the  foundation  of 
Christianity,  by  one  party,  and  about  their  being  im 
possible  to  be  proved,  by  another  party,  —  it  would  all 
have  been  but  as  the  idle  wind  to  Baxter  and  Owen. 
Ministers  who  knew  of  the  rock  on  which  the  Church 
is  founded,  —  they  would  have  looked  round  them, 
on  one  side  and  on  the  other ;  and  they  would  have 
said  together,  "  Christianity  based  on  miracles  !  0 
you  unspiritual  brethren !  The  miracles  of  the  New 
Testament  impossible  to  be  proved  in  a  court  of  law  ! 
So  they  are ;  and  we  acknowledge  it  willingly.  But 
they  are  true  nevertheless,  a  thousand  times  true." 
But  Baxter  and  Owen  were  theologians,  eminent  and 


84  MIRACLES   AND  DOCTRINE. 

acknowledged,  in  an  age  when  it  was  not  strange  to 
remember  that  the  word  theology  means  the  sci 
ence  of  God.  They  were  men  for  whom  there  was  a 
world  of  spirit  just  as  surely  as  a  world  of  matter. 
They  were  men  of  learning,  and  also  they  were  men 
of  wide  and  various  experience  in  the  world.  And 
they  were  men,  too,  of  a  rarer  wisdom  than  is  ever 
caught  from  either  books  or  fellow-creatures,  men  of 
spiritual  insight,  and  men  who  knew,  or  thought  that 
they  could  know,  "  the  things  of  God  by  the  Spirit 
of  God." 

Baden  Powell  regards  miracles  as  hard  to  be  be 
lieved  by  the  scientific  mind,  and  as  becoming  more 
and  more  incredible  to  the  world  at  large.  And  he 
says  expressly  :  "  If  miracles  were  in  the  estimation  of 
a  former  age  among  the  chief  supports  of  Christianity, 
they  are  at  present  among  the  main  difficulties  and 
hindrances  to  its  acceptance  "  ;  and  Kenan  and  others 
say  so  too.  To  this  Baxter  and  Owen,  only  that  their 
time  of  speaking  in  this  world  is  over,  might  be  sup 
posed  to  answer :  "  To  the  scientific  mind  miracles  are 
incredible.  Nor  is  this  to  be  wondered  at,  since  the 
natural  man  receiveth  not  the  things  of  the  Spirit  of 
God ;  for  unto  him  they  are  foolishness.  But,  to  him 
that  is  spiritual,  they  are  the  wisdom  of  God  and  the 
power  of  God ;  for  they  are  not  only  reported  to  the 
world  by  history,  but  also  by  Christians  they  are  sus 
ceptible  of  being  spiritually  discerned."  And  such  a 
statement  would  be  legitimate  and  sound ;  for  what 
cannot  be  quite  proved  in  one  court  by  direct  testi 
mony  may  be  abundantly  demonstrable  in  another 
court,  by  circumstantial  and  presumptive  evidence. 


MIRACLES  AND  DOCTRINE.  85 

And  what  can  never  be  proved  to  a  scientific  demon 
stration,  a  man  may  yet  be  insane  if  he  does  not  be 
lieve.  And  things  which  would  be  utterly  impossible 
to  a  man  of  the  earth,  earthy,  even  though  his  earthi- 
ness  were  of  the  very  finest  kind,  and  energetic  as  a 
tiger'^,  and  sagacious  as  an  elephant's,  —  these  same 
things  might  become  abundantly  credible  to  him,  as 
soon  as  ever  his  earthiness  had  been  touched  by  "  the 
second  A4am,"  the  "  quickening  spirit,"  "  the  Lord 
from  heaven."  And  about  God,  though  viewed,  as 
often  he  is,  as  being  a  mighty  machinist,  heartless 
really,  though  delighting  in  work,  there  are  things 
which  would  seem  to  be  very  unlikely,  but  which  are 
easily  credited  by  a  man,  who,  because  of  his  having 
been  reached  by  the  Spirit,  has  felt  himself  "  in  sub 
jection  unto  the  Father  of  spirits."  For,  whatever 
the  eternal  necessity  of  things  may  be,  it  can  never 
be  supposed,  before  the  throne  of  grace,  if  there  be 
one,  that  necessarily  men  and  butterflies  must  be 
alike. 

But  now,  because  the  thing  has  got  to  be  done,  it 
must  be  done,  but  yet  it  is  not  without  reluctance 
and  even  some  pain ;  for  Kenan  is  a  man  of  some  fine 
characteristics,  though  not  perhaps,  in  all  respects,  of 
the  very  happiest  schooling  in  life.  Kef  erring  to  the 
earlier  chapters  of  the  Book  of  Acts,  in  his  volume  on 
the  Apostles,  he  says,  "It  would  be  unjust  to  dwell  on 
anything  we  may  see  to  be  shocked  at,  in  this  sad  page 
of  the  origin  of  Christianity.  For  vulgar  hearers,  the 
miracle  proves  the  doctrine  ;  for  us,  the  miracle  causes 
the  doctrine  to  be  forgotten.  When  a  belief  has  con 
soled  and  ameliorated  humanity,  it  is  excusable  for 


. 

86  MIRACLES    AND   DOCTRINE. 

having  employed  proofs  proportioned  to  the  weakness 
of  the  public,  whom  it  addressed."  There  are  persons 
who  would  call  this  French  sentiment.  There  are 
others  who  would  utter  words  ahout  it,  keen  enough 
and  true,  but  words  also  of  crimination  and  condemna 
tion.  But  that  shall  not  be  done  here.  Christianity 
is  an  excusable  imposture,  according  to  Eenan.  That 
Christianity  is  an  imposture,  possibly  a  man  may  be 
lieve  honestly ;  but  that,  as  an  imposture,  it  is  excusa 
ble  because  of  what  has  happened  with  it,  —  for  the 
supposition  of  such  a  thing  as  this,  there  are  no  easy 
words  to  comment  with  which  are  strong  enough.  Let 
the  reader  peruse  again  the  words  of  Baxter  and  Owen, 
and  thank  God  that  he  can  so  readily  sweeten  his 
mind,  after  such  a  sentiment  as  has  been  submitted  to 
him. 

Miracles  are  so  intimately  connected  with  the  per 
sonality  of  Jesus  and  with  the  lives  of  his  apostles, 
that  it  would  seem  as  though  it  might  be  impossible 
for  a  sane  man,  should  he  bethink  himself,  to  say  that 
the  miracles  are  false,  while  Jesus  is  true  ;  or  to  say 
that  Paul  could  write  as  he  did  out  of  a  mind  either 
crazy  or  deceitful.  Concurrently  with  a  belief  in 
Christ,  as  a  manifestation  of  the  Highest,  a  man  in 
deed  may  say  :  "  Christ  Jesus  I  bow  to,  as  a  Revelation 
started  from  somewhere  between  me  and  the  unknown 
God ;  and  he  is  the  highest,  holiest  manifestation, 
amidst  primeval  darkness  which  I  have  to  trust  to. 
As  to  the  miracles  connected  with  Christ,  it  is  so  that 
I  cannot  understand  them,  that  I  cannot  conscien 
tiously  say,  in  the  proper  meaning  of  the  word  '  be 
lief,'  that  I  do  believe  them.  It  may  be  that  consti- 


MIRACLES   AND   DOCTRINE.  87 

tutionally  I  am  unfitted  for  a  belief  in  the  marvellous, 
just  as  many  men  are  disqualified  for  music  and  math 
ematics  ;  and  it  may  be  that  some  time  my  mind  will 
open  to  light,  which  at  present  it  is  closed  against ; 
and,  should  that  light  ever  come,  it  will  be  welcome 
and  blessed."  A  man  may  be  in  such  a  position  as 
that  mentally,  and  be  a  very  good  Christian  perhaps. 
But  there  would  seem  to  be  a  wall  of  separation  be 
tween  him  and  the  man  who  denounces  the  miracles 
of  the  New  Testament  as  being  impostures.  For  the 
latter  person  really  can  find  in  Christianity  but  very 
little  which  is  worthy  of  respect ;  vitiated  to  his  mind, 
as  it  must  nearly  all  of  it  be,  by  its  connections  with 
what  he  supposes  to  be  imposture,  —  that  is,  if  he  be 
a  man  who  can  be  justified  in  reasoning  at  all  on  such 
a  subject  as  Christianity. 

In  illustration  of  the  subject  of  Christianity,  as 
vouched  for  by  miracles,  may  be  considered  the  follow 
ing  passage  from  a  homily  by  St.  John  Chrysostom, 
about  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century  :  — 

"  Tell  me,  if  it  were  at  your  choice  either  to  raise 
the  dead  in  the  name  of  Christ,  or  to  die  for  the  sake  of 
his  name,  which  would  you  wish  to  do  ?  Would  you 
not  certainly  prefer  the  latter  ?  And  if  there  were  of 
fered  to  you  either  the  power  of  changing  fodder  into 
gold,  or  a  will  which  could  despise  wealth  like  fodder, 
would  not  you  choose  the  latter  of  the  two  ?  And 
rightly  would  you  do  so,  because  men  would  be  best 
persuaded  in  that  manner  ;  for,  if  they  saw  you  change 
fodder  into  gold,  like  Simon,  they  would  wish  to  share 
the  miraculous  power  with  you ;  and  so  their  love  of 
money  would  grow  upon  them.  But,  if  ever  they 


88  MIRACLES  AND  DOCTRINE. 

could  see  gold  despised  like  fodder,  they  would  soon 
be  cleansed  from  their  disease.  You  see,  then,  that  it 
is  a  good  life  which  avails  most." 

And,  now,  a  very  different  man  from  the  golden- 
mouthed  bishop,  an  ancient  Eabbi,  Simeon  Ben  Lac- 
hish,  from  his  point  of  view  would  remark :  — 

"  The  proselyte  is  more  beloved  by  the  holy,  blessed 
God  than  the  whole  crowd  that  stood  before  Mount 
Sinai.  For  unless  they  had  heard  the  thunderings, 
and  seen  the  flames  and  lightnings,  the  hills  trembling 
and  the  trumpets  sounding,  they  had  not  received  the 
law.  But  the  proselyte  hath  seen  nothing  of  all  this, 
and  yet  hath  come  in,  devoting  himself  to  the  holy, 
blessed  God,  and  hath  taken  upon  him  the  kingdom  of 
heaven." 

And  here  may  come  in  a  quotation  from  the  Pneu- 
matology  of  Heinrich  Stilling,  as  corroborating  some 
what  indirectly,  but  from  the  fact  of  experience,  the 
position  of  Baxter  and  Owen,  as  to  the  relative  influ 
ence  of  miracle  and  doctrine.  After  saying  that  an 
apparition  may  cause  a  panic,  but  seldom  or  never 
operate  a  conversion,  he  adds,  "  I  know  instances  of 
professed  materialists  and  freethinkers  having  posi 
tively  seen  spirits,  so  that  they  were  convinced  that  it 
was  the  soul  of  one  of  their  deceased  acquaintances ; 
and  yet  they  continued  to  doubt  their  own  immortal 
ity  and  self-consciousness." 

From  a  very  different  quarter,  very  rich,  however,  in 
psychological  information,  may  be  adduced  the  follow 
ing  testimony  of  Emmanuel  Swedenborg :  "  A  sixth 
law  of  the  Divine  Providence  is  that  man  should  not 
be  reformed  by  external  mediums,  but  by  internal  me- 


MIRACLES   AND   DOCTRINE.  89 

diums ;  by  external  mediums  means  by  miracles  and 
visions,  also  by  fears  and  punishment ;  by  internal 
mediums  means  by  truths  and  goods  from  the  word, 
and  from  the  doctrine  of  the  Church,  and  by  looking 
to  the  Lord ;  for  these  mediums  enter  by  an  internal 
way,  and  cast  out  the  evils  and  falses  which  reside 
within :  but  external  mediums  enter  by  an  external 
way,  and  do  not  cast  out  evils  and  falses,  but  shut 
them  in.  Nevertheless,  man  is  further  reformed  by  ex 
ternal  mediums,  provided  he  has  been  before  reformed 
by  internal  mediums." 

Not  in  controversy  about  miracles,  as  disconnected, 
isolated  facts,  can  there  ever  be  found  the  truth  about 
them.  But  let  the  denier  of  miracles  study  pneumat 
ics,  and  learn  the  marvels  which  will  be  disclosed  to 
him :  and  let  the  mere  dogmatic  asserter  of  miracles 
explore  the  philosophy  to  which  they  belong ;  and  then 
the  two  will  find  themselves  meeting  on  peaceful 
ground,  amazed,  indeed,  but  not  lost  in  amazement. 


MIEACLES   AND   THE   BELIEVING   SPIRIT. 

AND  with  the  event  just  now  supposed  a  new  era 
would  probably  begin  for  the  Church.  There  is 
nobody  living  who  can  read  the  Bible  as  he  ought  to 
do.  If  he  be  not  a  Christian,  he  reads  it  with  at  least 
some  small  remains  of  the  hostility,  which  was  wak 
ened  in  his  predecessors  by  the  hatred  with  which  they 
were  once  pursued.  And  if  he  be  a  Christian,  he  reads 
it  as  though  it  were  a  book  by  itself;  as  though  there 
had  been  no  time  anywhere  else,  while  the  ages  of 
Jewish  history  were  slowly  passing ;  as  though,  body 
and  soul,  the  ancient  inhabitants  of  Palestine  had 
been  such  a  peculiar  people  as  that  poetry,  with  them, 
had  been  altogether  another  thing  from  poetry  in 
Greece ;  and  as  though  the  prophets  of  Homer,  Plato, 
and  Pausanias  were  so  utterly  different  in  constitution 
and  purpose  from  the  prophets  of  the  Scriptures  as 
that  even  the  false  prophets  of  the  Bible  could  not 
possibly  be  likened,  in  any  way,  to  the  prophets  of  the 
Iliad,  or  of  the  Travels  in  Greece.  Even  the  heathen 
ism  denounced  in  the  Scriptures  is  held,  not  in  vener 
ation  certainly,  but  yet  in  such  a  reserved,  conservative 
temper  as  that  hardly  ever  does  any  one  think  to  illus 
trate  it  by  the  heathenism  of  Hindostan  or  Africa. 
Analogy  is  rarely  thought  of  as  being  possible  between 
the  demoniacs  of  the  New  Testament  and  "  the  suffer- 


MIRACLES   AND   THE   BELIEVING   SPIRIT.  91 

ers "  in  Salem,  some  two  hundred  years  ago,  or  the 
people  of  strange  experiences  lately,  at  Chambery  in 
Savoy,  and  more  recently  at  Morzine.  And  notwith 
standing  the  little  philosophy  which  is  accessible  on 
the  subject  of  prophecy,  never  perhaps  to  any  formal 
commentator  on  the  Scriptures  has  it  occurred  to  illus 
trate  the  manner  in  which,  characteristically,  as  it 
would  appear,  often  the  prophets  of  the  Old  Testament 
were  convulsed,  by  any  reference  to  the  peculiarity 
which  caused  the  society  of  Friends  to  be  called  Qua 
kers.  It  is  as  though  it  were  thought  that  even  the 
devils,  mentioned  in  the  New  Testament,  would  be 
profaned  by  having  anything  modern  likened  to  them. 

More  and  more  the  tendency  has  been  to  read  the 
Scriptures  by  the  least  light  possible  of  a  spiritual 
character ;  but  sea  and  land,  the  while,  have  been 
compassed  to  learn  about  the  mustard-tree,  or  as  to 
leprosy,  or  as  to  how  wine  was  made,  and  cakes  were 
baked,  anciently,  or  as  to  the  niceties  of  the  old  law 
on  polygamy  and  divorce.  And  it  seems  like  a  daring 
statement,  when  one  reads,  in  the  grave  work  of  an 
English  dignitary,  that  prophetic  power  has  existed 
outside  of  the  churches,  both  Jewish  and  Christian. 
And  it  has  seemed  to  be  very  anomalous,  when  it  has 
been  hinted,  by  the  way  of  comparing  small  things 
with  great,  that  there  may  possibly  be  some  analogy 
between  the  ancient  "  laying-on  of  hands "  and  the 
processes  which  were  stumbled  upon  by  Mesmer. 

And  yet  to  demur  to  illustrations  of  the  Scriptures 
from  psychological  experiences,  modern  or  mediaeval, 
is  really  about  the  same  thing  as  though  one  should 
hold  that  Miriam's  triumphal  ode,  on  the  shore  of  the 


92  MIRACLES  AND   THE  BELIEVING   SPIRIT. 

Eed  Sea,  could  never  have  been  made  audible  by  such 
breath  as  mortals  draw ;  or  as  though  one  should  deny 
that  the  harp  to  which  David  sang  from  inspiration 
could  possibly  have  been  such  an  instrument  as  might 
have  been  bought  in  a  market-place.  Such  confusion 
often  do  men  seriously  and  solemnly,  —  and  all  the 
more  readily  because  of  the  solemnity  which  they  are 
under,  —  such  confusion  do  men  make  between  a  mere 
channel  and  the  water  in  it,  which  really  constitutes 
the  stream.  As  Jesus  ascended  from  Jericho  to  Jeru 
salem,  a  whole  multitude  accompanied  him,  with  their 
hosannas  "  for  all  the  mighty  works  which  they  had 
seen."  This  action  of  theirs  the  Pharisees  would  have 
had  Jesus  rebuke.  "  And  he  answered  and  said  unto 
them,  I  tell  you  that  if  these  should  hold  their  peace 
the  stones  would  immediately  cry  out."  And  if  this  had 
happened,  as  it  might  have  done,  it  would  not  have 
been  that  the  stones  would  have  become  adorable,  or 
that  they  would  have  remained  anything  else  than  com 
mon  stones  ;  but  simply  it  would  have  been  made  plain 
and  memorable  that  the  Holy  Spirit  which  was  shed 
abroad  there,  can  make  anything  vocal,  though  per 
haps  the  stubborn  heart  of  a  man  may  be  almost  the 
last  thing  to  be  pliant  to  its  promptings. 

On  the  subject  of  miracles  it  is  very  curious  how 
men  dogmatize  sometimes  ;  for  a  man  will  argue  on 
behalf  of  the  miracles  of  the  Bible  as  though  they 
were  simply  things  of  history,  and  almost  of  yester 
day,  in  a  neighboring  city,  having  no  eye  for  the  long 
perspective  of  history,  and  having  also  no  more  idea 
of  the  history  of  the  Bible,  and  the  books  which  com 
pose  it,  than  the  wicked  Aliab  had  of  geology  and  the 


MIRACLES  AND   THE   BELIEVING  SPIRIT.  93 

formation  of  mica  slate  ;  while  another  man  in  at 
tacking  the  credibility  of  miracles  does  it  as  though, 
"by  the  grace  of  God/'  he  were  a  king  of  thought, 
with  a  right  to  legislate  for  his  own  wants  in  argu 
ment,  and  to  raise  up  and  put  down  witnesses  at  will. 
This  man,  however,  is  essentially  of  the  same  char 
acter  with  his  humbler  brother,  who  holds  simply, 
"  Everybody  is  as  good  as  any  other  body,  and  is  just 
as  much  entitled  to  an  opinion ;  and  let  him  have  it 
and  say  it." 

A  man  must  have  some  sense  of  the  miraculous  be 
fore  miracles  can  be  to  him  what  they  ought  to  be. 
He  must  believe  them  himself  aright  before  he  is  fit 
to  convince  others.  And  to  argue  them  simply  by 
the  way  of  testimony  and  history,  as  is  commonly 
done,  does  more  mischief  than  good,  and  has  often, 
with  pressure,  roused  a  conscientious  antagonism  of 
unbelief.  Now  and  then  a  man  is  to  be  heard  who 
takes  credit  to  himself  for  believing  in  the  miracles 
of  the  Scriptures,  while  actually  his  belief  is  just 
what  he  might  have  for  the  measurement  of  Nineveh, 
should  it  ever  be  published,  or  for  the  locality  of  the 
pool  of  Siloam.  "Believing  in  miracles,  is  believing 
in  history,"  says  the  confident  man,  "  and  when  I  say 
history,  I  mean  the  Bible."  But  now  history  is  not 
exactly  the  same  thing  to  one  man  as  it  is  to  another, 
nor  to  the  same  man  is  it  the  same  thing  at  all  times. 
And  miracles,  as  a  subject,  need  for  their  appreciation, 
not  the  temper  of  the  market-place,  nor  the  tone  of 
the  council-chamber,  but  the  spirit  of  a  worshipper, 
who  has  been  admitted  further  into  the  temple  than 
the  fore-court,  and  who,  if  he  has  never  seen  inside 


94  MIRACLES  AND   THE   BELIEVING   SPIRIT. 

of  the  holy  of  holies,  has  yet  distinctly  recognized 
the  veil  of  separation,  which  hangs  before  it. 

What  constitutes  a  prophet  ?  How  did  the  word  of 
the  Lord  come  ?  and  by  what  faculty  was  it  received  ? 
How  did  the  Spirit  rest  upon  a  man  ?  What  exactly 
was  the  state  of  a  man  when  he  saw  visions  ?  And 
what  precisely  was  it  which  happened  when  a  man 
had  a  revelation  in  a  dream  ?  Surely,  these  are  ques 
tions  which  theology  ought  to  be  ready  to  answer  any 
where,  in  a  moment ;  and  especially,  as  at  least,  the 
answers  have  always  been  latent  in  the  Scriptures 
themselves.  And  yet  there  are  theologians  by  pro 
fession,  who  are  very  impatient  of  such  inquiries  as 
these,  who  yet  would  be  scandalized  at  being  thought 
to  be  impatient  Christians.  The  pneumatology  of  the 
Scriptures,  from  one  cause  'and  another,  is  utterly  un 
known,  and  even  unsuspected  by  many  persons,  who 
perhaps  would  be  ardent  students  in  it,  but  for  the 
spiritual  twilight  of  our  day,  occasioned  by  the  long, 
low,  dense  cloud  of  anti-supernaturalism,  which  has 
been  passing  over  us.  Often  in  controversies  about 
miracles  it  would  be  ludicrous,  only  that  it  is  sad,  to 
see  and  know  that  on  neither  side  have  the  opponents 
a  right  to  any  opinion  whatever,  any  more  than  if  they 
were  two  unlettered  Celts  arguing  about  the  binomial 
theorem. 

And  among  even  the  assailants  of  miracles  as 
being  credible,  there  is  that  difference  of  opinion 
which  argues  that  it  is  not  because  of  broad  daylight 
that  they  act,  but  really  because,  being  intellectually 
active,  they  have  been  unable  to  sleep  through  this 
long  "  eclipse  of  faith."  Kenan  thinks  that  visions 


MIRACLES   AND   THE   BELIEVING   SPIRIT.  95 

and  prophecies  are  as  much  exceptional  to  order,  and 
as  incredible  as  material  miracles.  But  Baden  Powell 
does  not  think  so.  He  would  have  been  perplexed 
and  almost  shocked  by  a  miracle  involving  atoms  of 
dirt,  or  which  might  have  seemed  to  compromise 
chemistry,  as  in  the  healing  of  a  sick  man,  or  the 
multiplication  of  loaves  and  fishes  by  Jesus ;  but 
readily  he  would  have  credited  visions  and  prophecies, 
as  the  result  of  spiritual  interference  with  the  spirits 
of  men.  h«.*p 

In  the  immortality  of  the  soul  a  man  may  believe 
for  fifty  years,  and  in  the  fifty-first  year,  with  "  new 
ness  of  life  "  may  find  that  for  the  half  of  a  century- 
he  had  been  believing  with  his  fancy  only,  and  not 
his  heart.  And  after  illness  or  great  trouble  often  a 
man  finds  that,  in  some  way  or  other,  he  has  become 
"_a  new  creature,"  because  of  the  new  book  into  which, 
for  him,  the  old  Bible  would  seem  to  have  changed. 
And  in  this  world's  darkness  there  have  been  leaders 
of  the  people  religiously,  who,  because  of  their  having 
been  enlightened  from  above,  have  been  ready  to  hum 
ble  themselves  in  the  dust,  not  only  before  the  Lord, 
but  in  the  congregation  of  their  fellow-creatures,  be 
cause  of  their  having  spoken  of  "the  things  of  the 
Spirit,"  without  having  personally  known  of  the 
Spirit,  and  who  would  have  wished  to  have  said  with 
Isaiah,  "  Woe  is  me  !  for  I  am  undone ;  because  I  am 
a  man  of  unclean  lips,  and  I  dwell  in  the  midst  of  a 
people  of  unclean  lips  :  for  mine  eyes  have  seen  the 
King,  the  Lord  of  hosts." 

Miracles  presuppose  a  miraculous  world,  a  world 
of  spirit,  from  which,  now  and  then,  may  be  manifested 


96  MIRACLES   AND   THE   BELIEVING   SPIRIT. 

"  signs."  But  if  that  world  be  itself  denied,  or  if  the 
means  or  channels  for  any  effect  from  it  be  disbelieved, 
or  if  the  sense  for  it  be  asleep,  men  may  talk  about 
miracles,  and  may  believe  them,  as  they  believe  in  the 
ring  of  Scipio  Barbatus,  which  is  said  to  have  been 
found  in  his  tomb.  But  believing  in  that  manner, 
they  do  not  believe  miracles  aright,  do  not  believe 
them,  as  being  what  exactly  they  call  themselves, 
which  is  "  signs."  Miracles  are  "  signs."  And  signs 
presuppose  a  quarter  whence  they  are  made,  and  a 
mind  which  makes  them.  In  the  New  Testament,  at 
least,  miracles  are  "  signs,"  —  signs  of  a  presence 
which  could  not  itself  be  borne  perhaps,  —  signs  of  a 
something  which  of  itself  would  be  too  vast  for  hu 
man  comprehension. 

But  the  significance  of  miracles  in  this  manner,  is 
exactly  what  has  been  generally  surrendered  to  the  as 
saults  of  science.  Theology  grown  timid  from  many 
causes,  and  feeble  too,  has  allowed  young  audacious 
science  to  strip  it,  almost  without  resistance.  And 
outside  of  the  Catholic  Church,  the  utmost  which  it 
attempts  to-day  is  to  entreat  scientific  men,  for  the 
love  of  God,  to  spare  some  of  the  miracles  of  the  Bi 
ble,  and  to  let  believers  believe  them,  because  of  vari 
ous  ingenious  theories,  by  which  miracles  may  con 
ceivably  be  true.  And  this  it  does  very  often,  without 
remembering  that  these  various  and  ingenious  theories 
are  opposed  to  one  another,  and  do  not  need  the  unbe 
lief  of  an  enemy  to  expose  and  quash  them. 

Angel  or  vision,  spirit  or  demon,  dream  or  impulse, 
—  none  of  these  things  ever  come  into  this  world,  to 
anybody,  from  out  of  another  world  :  that  is  what  the 


MIRACLES   AND   THE    BELIEVING   SPIRIT.  97 

common  philosophy  of  the  day  says  ;  and  it  is  what 
generally,  among  Protestants,  theology  agrees  to,  though 
with  many  curious  make-shifts  for  saving  its  dignity, 
and  with  one  reservation.  And  the  reservation  which 
theology  makes  for  itself,  before  succumbing  to  the 
imperious  scepticism  of  science,  is  merely  this  :  that  in 
a  certain  country,  at  certain  times  there  may  have  been 
miracles,  though  provided  for,  perhaps,  from  the  begin 
ning  of  the  world  in  some  curious  way,  by  which 
science  need  not  feel  itself  compromised,  except  very 
slightly  or  almost  not  at  all.  And  this  is  theology,  is 
it  ?  Modern  theology,  it  may  be,  but  it  is  wofully 
weak.  And  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  miracles  of  the 
Bible  are  regarded  as  untenable  accounts,  and  as 
scarcely  worthy  of  an  argument,  by  young  students, 
in  whose  eyes  they  can  be,  at  the  best,  but  like  relics 
descended  from  a  mighty  past,  dead  now  and  over ; 
and  vouched  for  also  in  merely  the  same  traditional 
way  as  the  holy  curiosities  in  the  treasury  of  some 
Catholic  church  in  France  or  Italy,  —  a  skull  perhaps, 
a  piece  of  a  cloak,  an  old  shoe,  a  little  finger,  a  lock  of 
hair,  and  other  things,  for  which,  living  connection  and 
vital  significance  have  long  since  ceased. 

During  the  last  three  or  four  generations,  the  mira 
cles  narrated  in  the  Holy  Scriptures  have  been  de 
fended,  variously  defended,  ingeniously  defended,  hotly 
defended,  defended  with  lofty  scorn,  and  defended  with 
erudite  contempt ;  but  they  have  not  proportionately 
been  preached  upon,  or  expounded,  or  gloried  in.  And 
it  is  a  very  singular,  significant  fact,  that  latterly  the 
subject  of  miracles  has  been  avoided  by  genius  as 
something  unattractive,  and  by  holy  meditation  as 
5  G 


98  MIRACLES   AND   THE   BELIEVING   SPIRIT. 

something  uncongenial.  The  defence  of  miracles  has 
been  free  and  multitudinous ;  but  then  it  has  been 
made  much  in  the  same  way  as  the  doors  of  a  church 
might  be  barred  against  a  mob,  and  in  much  the  same 
temper.  Miracles  have  been  defended  against  the 
spirit  of  the  times,  by  men  of  the  same  spirit  them 
selves.  And  by  the  very  way  and  tone  in  which  mir 
acles  have  been  defended,  there  has  been  drawn  upon 
them  a  keener  and  more  concentrated  attack. 

The  arms  with  which  Christianity  is  assailed  to-day 
on  account  of  the  miracles  connected  with  the  gospel, 
the  ingenious  arguments  against  them,  have  nearly  all 
been  got  out  of  Protestant  armories,  and  are  actually 
the  same  weapons  which  Protestants,  during  two  or 
three  centuries,  have  devised  and  welded,  and  used 
against  the  credibility  of  the  miracles  of  the  Catholic 
Church.  "Anything  outside  of  the  order  of  Nature, 
must  be  a  miracle  inside  of  the  Church,  or  else  it  must 
be  the  work  of  the  old  enemy  of  the  Church,  and 
therefore,  in  a  way,  is  still  a  testimonial  to  the  Church." 
And  not  a  little  of  the  controversy  between  the  Cath 
olic  Church  and  Protestants,  has  presupposed  this 
false  issue.  And  always  it  has  been  done  to  the  detri 
ment  of  Protestantism ;  for  a  man  cannot  fight,  any 
more  than  he  can  sleep  in  a  cramped  attitude,  without 
being  the  worse  for  it.  Perverted  by  philosophy  some 
times,  and  heated  by  controversy,  it  has  often  happened 
that  Protestantism  has  defined  miracles  not  quite  right 
ly,  as  to  both  their  nature  and  significance ;  and  thus 
it  has  chanced  that  while  combating  the  credibility 
of  the  mediaeval  and  modern  miracles  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  the  leaders  of  Protestantism  have  actually 


MIRACLES  AND   THE   BELIEVING   SPIRIT.  99 

exposed  their  own  position,  as  Christian  believers. 
And  all  the  while  really,  in  one  place  or  another,  age 
after  age,  have  been  occurring,  among  Protestants 
themselves  things  of  the  same  nature  as  have  sufficed 
at  Eome  for  the  canonization  of  saints,  or  for  evidence 
of  close  communion  with  the  spiritual  world. 

In  the  seventeenth  century  lived  an  Irish  gentleman 
of  the  name  of  Greatrex,  who  healed  diseases  in  a 
manner  which  would  be  commonly  understood  as  be 
ing  miraculous.  The  evidence  about  him  is  what 
would  be  supported  by  Evelyn  and  Jeremy  Taylor. 
But  now,  what  that  man  did  would  suffice  in  the  Con 
gregation  on  Eites  at  Eome  for  the  canonization  of 
fifty  saints.  And  in  the  life  of  the  Seeress  of  Pre- 
vorst,  within  the  present  century,  were  instances  of 
intercourse  with  spirits,  so  many  and  of  such  a  nature 
as  would  have  made  her  the  glory  of  any  Order  of 
Nuns  for  ages.  It  is  not  in  the  Catholic  Church  only 
that  people  sometimes  are  pious  and  clairvoyant  both ; 
and  there  have  been  many  Protestants,  and  especially 
while  in  suffering,  who  have  had  spiritual  experiences 
which,  in  the  life  of  St.  Philip  Neri,  would  have  count 
ed  for  additional  graces.  There  is  a  book  entitled, 
"  Devotional  Somnium,  or  a  Collection  of  Prayers  and 
Exhortations,  uttered  by  Miss  Rachel  Baker,  in  the 
City  of  New  York,  in  the  winter  of  eighteen  hundred 
and  fifteen,  during  her  abstracted,  unconscious  state." 
The  account  of  this  Presbyterian  girl  presupposes  a 
spiritual  peculiarity  like  what  constituted,  not  indeed 
the  saintship,  but  the  marvellousness  of  St.  Bridget,  in 
relation  to  whom  there  is  a  folio  volume,  in  Latin, 
printed  at  Munich,  in  the  seventeenth  century,  edited 


100  MIRACLES   AND   THE   BELIEVING   SPIRIT. 

by  a  Cardinal,  and  enriched  by  various  historical,  liter 
ary,  and  philosophical  illustrations,  —  "  Celestial  Kev- 
elations  of  the  Seraphic  Mother,  St.  Bridget,  of  Sweden, 
the  Foreordained  Bride  of  Christ,  and  the  Foundress 
of  the  Order  of  'her  Bridegroom,  the  most  Holy  Sav 
iour." 

It  has  been  the  misfortune  of  Protestantism  in  its 
controversy  with  the  Catholic  Church,  that  it  has  had 
to  argue  the  subject  of  miracles,  as  authorization  of 
doctrine,  while  itself  suffering,  by  way  of  circumscrip 
tion,  from  "  philosophy  falsely  so  called,"  or  only  in 
part  ascertained.  Twelve  years  ago,  there  was  pub 
lished  in  Paris,  a  Life  of  St.  Joseph  of  Cupertino.  It 
was  preceded  and  accompanied  by  a  loud  challenge  to 
Protestants,  on  account  of  certain  marvels* which  had 
happened  in  connection  with  the  saint.  The  Protes 
tant  notice  of  the  work  was  simply  a  jeering,  flat  de 
nial  of  the  marvels  which  seemed,  however,  to  be  well 
fortified  by  documents  as  to  their  credibility.  And 
yet  actually  to  that  Catholic  challenge  it  might  have 
been  answered,  that,  apart  from  goodness,  the  marvels 
for  which  St.  Joseph  of  Cupertino  was  canonized  are 
not  peculiar  to  the  Catholic  Church,  but  are  incidental 
to  human  nature,  as  is  the  truth  to  the  knowledge  of 
the  writer  hereof,  and  of  perhaps  a  whole  host  of  other 
Protestants.  Dreams,  visions,  and  impulses,  of  an  ex 
traordinary  character,  are  of  infinite  interest  to  Catho 
lics,  religiously ;  but  during  the  last  hundred  years  or 
more,  to  nearly  all  enlightened  Protestants,  they  have 
been,  at  best,  but  the  halves  of  "  singular  coincidences," 
or  they  have  been  "  queer  things,"  and  things  not  to  be 
named  or  even  thought  of  respectfully,  for  fear  of 
science  and  public  opinion. 


MIRACLES   AND   THE 

On  this  subject  of  miracles,  through  controversy 
with  the  Catholic  Church,  there  is  another  way  in 
which  Protestantism  has  suffered.  Any  statement  as 
to  miracles  by  a  Catholic  is  what  has  been  prepared 
and  indorsed  for  him  by  the  concentrated  authority, 
learning,  experience,  and  wisdom  of  his  Church. 
Whereas,  any  statement  by  a  Protestant  is  merely 
what  an  individual  can  best  make.  And  thus  it  hap 
pens  that  Protestants  argue  about  miracles  in  different 
ways,  and  in  ways  which  are  destructive  one  of  an 
other;  and  by  the  conflict  of  which,  generally,  faith 
is  weakened  and  bewildered.  But  perhaps,  any  time, 
if  the  average  sentiment  of  Protestants  on  the  subject 
of  miracles  and  the  Catholic  Church  could  have  got 
embodied  and  expressed,  it  would  have  been  something 
very  different  from  that  of  their  foremost  controversial 
ists.  But  such  an  expression  of  opinion,  of  course, 
could  have  been  only  conglomerate  and  not  homo 
geneous.  For  Protestants  are  people  of  varieties  and 
characteristics  known,  all  of  them,  to  no  man  living, 
perhaps.  They  are  Lutherans,  Calvinists,  Episcopa 
lians,  and  Presbyterians ;  Unitarians,  Moravians,  Qua 
kers,  Baptists,  Methodists  ;  people  who  eat,,  and  drink, 
and  work,  and  go  to  church,  but  who  never  think  seri 
ously  ;  people  who  never  go  to  church,  except  now  and 
then  in  some  regions,  to  assure  themselves  that  they 
are  Protestants  ;  and  people  who  go  to  church  for  duty, 
and  who,  at  home,  think  so  differently  and  so  sweetly 
otherwise  from  what  they  have  been  taught,  that  they 
are  an  astonishment  to  themselves  ;  Fellows  of  the 
Eoyal  Society  of  London ;  English  peasants,  who  have 
never  been  outside  of  their  native  counties ;  occupants 


102  MIRACLES   AND   THE   BELIEVING   SPIRIT. 

of  Swiss  valleys,  like  the  Ban  de  la  Koche  ;  and  suf 
fering,  sorrowing  pietists,  in  such  spots  of  dense  hea 
thenism  as  exist  in  London.  And  out  of  all  these 
classes,  the  aggregate  expression  would  probably  have 
been,  "  You  Catholics  are  not  afraid  of  science,  for  in 
side  of  your  countries  it  can  only  speak  by  permission 
of  the  Church.  But  with  us  Protestants,  it  is  differ 
ent.  And  somehow,  our  scholars  can  neither  think, 
nor  speak,  nor  feel,  nor  see,  except  with  a  twist,  which 
they  got  in  college.  About  science  we  generally  know 
nothing,  but  we  hope  the  best.  However,  we  do  know 
about  facts.  And  your  miracles,  if  that  be  what  you 
call  them,  —  things  like  some  of  your  miracles,  —  have 
always  been  as  common  among  us  as  they  are  with 
you ;  only  that  we  do  not  think  as  much  about  them ; 
nor  have  we  either  any  authority  among  us  to  inter 
pret,  and  magnify,  and  publish  them." 

Much  of  the  salt  of  the  Church  has  been  what 
never  was  dropped  from  the  pulpit.  And  there  have 
been  quiet,  reverential,  God-fearing  peasants,  believ 
ing  in  ghost-stories,  who,  simply  because  of  their  sense 
of  the  supernatural,  have  done  more  for  Christianity, 
without  one  word  for  it  intentionally,  than  many  a 
doctor  of  divinity  with  even  a  quarto  volume. 

Of  all  the  mistakes  committed  by  scholarship,  there 
is  none  worse  than  to  forego  sympathy  with  the 
ways  of  unlettered  thought,  and  to  feel  contempt  for 
the  multitude.  The  primitive  instincts  are  the  best 
part  of  our  lives ;  and  household  phraseology  is  the 
better  part  of  our  speech.  A  philosopher  cannot  de 
liberately  and  contemptuously  forego  communion  with 
the  poor,  without  being  liable  to  drift  away  into 


MIRACLES   AND   THE   BELIEVING   SPIRIT.  103 

vagaries  and  ineptitudes  of  thought ;  and  especially 
and  manifestly  has  this  been  the  case  on  the  subject 
of  the  Supernatural. 

There  is  in  existence  a  hymn-book,  and  of  no  ob 
scure  use  either,  in  its  day,  in  the  preface  to  which  it 
is  said,  that  the  hymns  have  been  made  to  conform 
to  modern  philosophy,  by  the  words,  soul,  and  spirit  in 
them  having  been  changed  into  mind,  reason,  and 
understanding.  Philosophy  to-day  is  not  so  widely 
different  from  that  modern  philosophy  as  it  might 
seem  to  be,  by  its  affecting  strongly  the  words  "  soul " 
and  "  spirit,"  and  even  making  them  fashionable ;  for 
always  that  philosophy  will  have  us  understand  by 
spirit  a  something  largely  void  of  spiritual  character 
istics,  as  known  alike  to  both  Jews  and  Greeks.  This 
emptying  the  word  "  spirit "  of  its  meaning  is  in  ac 
cordance  with  the  anti-supernaturalism  of  our  times. 
And,  in  the  same  manner,  the  Scriptures  have  been 
discharged  of  much  which  would  imply  preternatural 
connections  for  man.  This,  however,  is  a  subject  for 
further  and  fuller  consideration. 

Very  largely  a  man  can  find  in  the  Scriptures  only 
what  he  is  prepared  to  see.  This  is  true  of  any  book. 
But  over  and  above  those  reasons  which  rule  for 
a  legal  document,  there  are  others  which  specially 
govern  as  to  such  subjects  as  are  involved  in  an  ear 
nest  study  of  the  Scriptures.  Before  a  man  can  be 
open  to  the  full  meaning  of  words  which  were  written 
by  persons  within  the  sphere  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  he 
himself  must  have  been  touched  by  that  Spirit.  That 
touch  is  what  is  said  sometimes  to  throw  an  ignorant, 
disorderly  backwoodsman  into  convulsions,  because  of 


104  MIRACLES   AND   THE   BELIEVING   SPIRIT. 

the  manner  in  which  body  and  spirit  are  laced  to 
gether.  But  it  is  different  with  a  quiet,  orderly  per 
son,  studious  of  truth,  and  seeking  for  light.  And 
when  the  Spirit  reaches  such  a  person  it  affects  him 
like  a  great  thought,  like  a  flash  of  light  in  his  soul, 
from  above,  and  with  the  coming  of  which  he  feels 
at  once  humiliated  and  exalted,  and  as  being  what 
truly  he  is,  —  a  creature  in  affinity  with  the  Creator, 
and  a  child  on  earth  suddenly  found,  and  touched, 
and  drawn  by  the  Father  in  heaven. 

By  argument  merely  an  anti-supernaturalist  may  be 
convinced  that  he  is  not  justified  in  denying  the 
miracles  of  the  Scriptures.  And  by  argument,  per 
haps,  he  may  be  made  even  to  believe  them  histori 
cally.  But  for  making  him  believe  them  aright,  be 
lieve  them  to  the  best  purpose,  argument  is  not 
enough.  To  believe  miracles  with  the  intellect  is  one 
thing,  and  to  believe  them  with  the  heart  is  another. 
A  true  believer  believes  them  with  both  head  and 
heart.  In  these  times  to  propose  converting  an  un 
believer  to  Christianity,  as  is  often  'attempted,  by  sim 
ply  historical  argument,  long  drawn  out,  as  to  the 
reality  and  authority  of  miracles,  is  about  the  same 
thing  as  though,  in  the  case  of  a  priest  losing  his 
faith,  it  should  be  proposed  to  revive  him  spiritually 
by  clothing  him  with  surplice,  bands,  and  beretta,  and 
reading  to  him  a  lecture  on  apostolic  succession. 

According  to  the  Psalmist,  "  The  fool  hath  said  in 
his  heart,  There  is  no  God."  His  atheistic  folly  may 
be  corrected,  to  a  certain  extent,  by  a  good  theologian. 
And  the  fool  may  be  made  logically  to  see  and  know 
that  there  must  be  a  God.  But  he  can  have  his  heart 


MIRACLES   AND   THE   BELIEVING   SPIRIT.  105 

revive  from  its  atheistic  numbness  only  with  waiting 
and  humility,  and  by  the  healing  influence  of  that 
Spirit  which  indeed  is  the  God  "  in  whom  we  live  and 
move  and  have  our  being/'  which  makes  ministers  out 
of  angels,  and  which  perfects  praise  out  of  the  mouth 
of  babes ;  which  gets  itself  glorified  as  to  its  purposes, 
by  even  the  wrath  of  man ;  and  which,  reaching  us  as 
Christians  is  the  Spirit  which  bears  witness  with  our 
spirits  that  we  are  the  children  of  God ;  and  which, 
blending  with  our  spirits,  helps  our  infirmities,  and 
prays  in  our  prayers ;  and  which  manifests  its  strength 
in  man  the  most,  when  man  himself  is  at  his  weakest. 

A  Christian  believer  being  of  bad  habits  may  be  per 
suaded  to  reform  his  manners  ;  but  it  is  not  at  the  will 
of  either  himself  or  his  advisers,  that  he  shall  have 
what,  however,  will  surely  come,  with  perseverance,  — 
joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost. 

A  philosophical  materialist  may  have  been  con 
vinced  of  the  system,  which  is  the  opposite  of  what 
he  had  held ;  but  yet,  not  at  all  as  a  sequence  to  his 
reasoning,  and  altogether  really  apart  from  his  logic, 
it  may  flash  upon  him  that  he  is  not  only  a  spirit 
clothed  in  matter,  but  that  also  he  is  a  spirit  in  a 
spiritual  world,  a  spirit  open  to  he  knows  not  what ; 
but  certainly,  if  anything  be  certain,  open  to  the  Holy 
Ghost ;  open  to  the  gentle  approach  of  the  God  under 
whose  supremacy  he  came  into  being,  and  began  to 
know  of  hope  and  fear,  and  of  the  struggle  between 
virtue  and  vice. 

If  a  creature  of  yesterday  be  to  meet  what  is  from 
all  eternity,  if  what  at  its  very  best  is  folly  is  to  be 
noticed,  however  distantly,  by  infinite  wisdom,  it  can 
5* 


106  MIRACLES    AND   THE    BELIEVING   SPIRIT. 

only  be  because  wisdom  from  all  eternity  must  be  of 
infinite  condescension,  and  willing  even  to  "bow  the 
heavens  and  come  down  " ;  and  because,  now  and  al 
ways,  as  to  true  worshippers,  "  the  Father  seeketh  such 
to  worship  him." 

And  on  the  subject  of  miracles,  argument,  however 
acute  it  may  be,  is  not  everything.  A  man  may  be 
convinced  of  a  mistake  without  therefore  being  filled 
with  wisdom.  And  a  man,  by  argument,  may  be 
made  to  feel  that  he  has  no  right  to  deny  the  reality 
ttf  the  miracles  of  the  Scriptures.  But  before  they 
san  become  to  him  signs  as  well  as  wonders,  there 
must  be  open  in  him  an  apprehension  to  which  they 
signify ;  and  there  must  be  waiting  in  him  a  state  co- 
mingled  of  expectation,  awe,  and  faith,  to  which  they 
answer. 

After  Thomas  the  apostle,  who  could  not  believe  on 
testimony,  had  been  satisfied,  by  the  details  of  a  per 
sonal  interview,  that  his  Lord  was  alive  again,  after 
his  crucifixion,  death,  and  burial,  "Jesus  saith  unto 
him,  Thomas,  because  thou  hast  seen  me,  thou  hast 
believed  :  blessed  are  they  that  have  not  seen  and  yet 
have  believed."  By  this  text,  not  a  little  witticism 
and  worldly  wise  remark  has  been  started,  as  though 
it  had  been  a  sentiment  devised  for  proselytizing  pur 
poses.  Whereas,  simply  it  would  mean  that  blessed 
were  they  who  could  believe  in  his  resurrection,  on 
good  testimony ;  because  of  their  having  souls  larger 
than  what  might  suffice  for  a  detective  policeman ; 
because  of  their  being  of  a  temper  which  could  possi 
bly  believe  in  a  miracle,  without  seeing  it ;  because  of 
their  not  being  too  hard  of  heart ;  because  of  their 


MIRACLES   AND   THE   BELIEVING    SPIRIT.  107 

knowing  that  the  world  is  governed  not  only  by 
magistrates  like  Caiaphas  and  Pilate,  but  by  author 
ities  and  powers,  invisible  indeed,  but  higher  still  than 
they,  by  the  ministration  of  angels,  and  by  God  Most 
High ;  and  because  of  their  being  of  a  spirit,  informed 
by  the  experiences  of  their  people ;  —  hopeful  on  ac 
count  of  their  having  Abraham  to  their  father,  and 
from  the  expectations,  with  which  prophetically  they 
had  been  inspired  as  to  a  Messiah ;  and  ready  in  an 
hour  of  darkness  to  trust  the  future,  because  of  what 
Elijah  had  been,  and  Daniel  had  been  proved.  And 
perhaps,  also,  this  further  thought  may  have  been  in 
volved  in  those  words  of  the  Lord, —  that  blessed 
were  they  who,  because  of  what  they  knew  of  Jesus, 
and  because  of  what  they  had  felt  of  his  transcendent 
spirit,  and  because  of  their  sense  of  him  as  the  Holy 
One,  could  readily  believe  that  his  soul  was  not  to  be 
left  among  souls  below,  and  that  indeed  by  death  "  it 
was  not  possible  that  he  should  be  holden." 

But  there  are  persons  who  say,  with  many  airs  and 
much  emphasis,  "What  have  I  to  do  with  the  past  ? 
Let  the  dead  past  be  buried  with  the  dead.  I  am  a 
child  of  the  present."  And  anything  more  derogatory 
to  his  manhood  could  anybody  well  say  ?  A  child  of 
the  present !  That  is  exactly  what  a  monkey  is.  But 
all  the  more  that  a  man  is  a  man,  the  more  truly  is  he 
not  only  the  child  of  the  present  time,  but  the  grand 
child  of  the  last  century ;  and  also  a  descendant  of  the 
ages  which  were  before  Luther  and  Cranmer,  and  be 
fore  William  the  Conqueror,  and  before  Justinian  with 
his  Pandects,  and  before  Plato  and  Homer,  and  before 
Christ,  and  before  the  captivity  of  the  Jews,  and  be- 


108  MIRACLES   AND   THE   BELIEVING   SPIRIT. 

fore  Moses,  and  before  Abraham  was.  A  monkey  may 
chatter  to-day,  and  does,  as  monkeys  chattered  thou 
sands  of  years  ago.  But  no  man  to-day  speaks  exactly 
as  anybody  did  a  hundred  years  ago.  There  is  no  man 
but  speaks  by  his  connections  with  almost  every  de 
cade  of  every  century  of  recorded  time.  And  the  bet 
ter  he  speaks,  the  more  widely  does  the  man  evince 
what  his  connections  are,  with  Saxons,  Normans, 
Danes,  Britons,  Romans,  Greeks,  with  France  and 
Spain,  with  Arabia  and  Persia.  A  man  cannot  well 
even  order  his  dinner,  but  in  words  which  connect 
him  not  only  with  the  cooks  of  to-day,  but  with  the 
ancient  Germans  in  their  forests,  with  the  Normans 
of  a  thousand  years  ago,  and  with  Britons,  ages  before 
Julius  Caesar.  By  almost  every  word  he  uses,  by  al 
most  every  inflection  in  his  speech,  by  almost  every 
thought  he  has,  and  by  almost  every  shade  of  every 
thought,  the  man  of  to-day  is  the  child  of  the  past,  a 
thousand  times  more  than  he  is  a  child  of  the  present. 
•But  the  monkey  is  really  the  child  of  the  present,  and 
of  it  only,  and  always  is  so.  Monkeyhood  is  exactly 
the  same,  to-day,  which  it  was  a  hundred,  a  thousand 
years  ago,  or  when  Aristotle  was  alive. 

Man  is  a  child  of  the  past,  and  ever  more  and  more 
anciently  descended.  But  concurrently  with  the  men 
tal  wealth  which  is  derived  to  him  from  the  scholars 
and  institutions  and  nations  of  the  past,  there  are  ob 
ligations  and  fealties  to  the  past,  which  get  fastened 
upon  him. 

By  courts,  and  lawyers,  and  judges,  and  great  rev 
erence,  do  men  endeavor  to  perpetuate  among  them 
selves,  and  to  get  expounded  and  made  intelligible, 


MIRACLES  AND  THE   BELIEVING   SPIRIT.  109 

the  principles  of  law,  which  are  the  essences  of  the 
accumulated  experiences  of  many  men,  in  many  ways, 
in  many  ages,  and  in  many  lands. 

And  a  man  has  no  right  to  denounce  or  discard,  or 
even  to  suspect,  the  miracles  of  the  Scriptures,  merely 
because  they  are  not  in  keeping  with  his  own  notions, 
or,  as  he  says,  because  of  his  being  himself  a  child  of 
to-day,  and  free  of  the  past.  For  free  of  the  past, 
whether  for  knowledge,  or  obligation,  or  fealty,  is 
what  a  man  can  be,  only  just  as  he  nears  the  irre 
sponsible,  disconnected,  untaught,  playsome  individ 
uality  of  the  monkey  in  the  woods. 


THE  SCRIPTURES  AND  PNEUMATOLOGY. 


THE  Bible  is  a  book  which  "he  who  runs  may 
read."  But  if  a  man  will  read  it,  as  a  critic,  he 
is  bound  to  read  it  by  all  the  light  which  he  can  get ; 
and  to  remember  also,  that  even  so  he  may  be  but  in 
a  dim  twilight.  "  Rise,  take  up  thy  bed  and  walk," 
were  words  which  turned  to  a  miracle  of  healing  for  a 
poor  man,  so  as  that  he  could  roll  up  his  bit  of  car 
pet  and  walk  away.  But  for  want  of  that  informa 
tion,  with  which  always  the  background  of  Scriptural 
scenes  ought  to  be  filled  up,  in  an  old  Dutch  engrav 
ing,  the  sufferer  of  thirty-eight  years  is  pictured  as 
walking  away  with  a  four-post  bedstead,  curtains,  and 
bedding  on  his  shoulders.  And  often  on  the  miracles 
of  the  Scriptures  there  are  comments  made  which, 
philosophically,  are  just  as  unwitting  as  that  Dutch 
picture.  For  indeed  miracles  presuppose  some  kind 
of  pneumatology.  But  this  is  a  thing  which  is  hardly 
ever  thought  of,  because  of  the  anti-supernaturalism 
of  the  times,  which  latterly  men  have  been  living 
through.  "  Pneumatology,  —  what  is  that,  and  what 
can  that  have  to  do  with  the  Scriptures  ? "  These  are 
questions,  which  have  been  asked  in  all  seriousness, 
by  persons,  like  whom  there  are  thousands  of  others, 
both  among  those  who  attack  and  those  who  defend 
the  Scriptures. 


THE   SCRIPTURES   AND   PNEUMATOLOGY.  Ill 

Pneumatology  is  the  science,  or  rather  is  the  Lest 
understanding  of  men  as  to  the  spiritual  universe,  as 
to  the  ranks  of  spiritual  beings,  from  the  highest  to 
the  lowest,  and  especially  of  men  as  spiritual  beings, 
and  of  the  ways  in  which  spiritually  they  may  affect 
one  another ;  of  their  connections  also  with  the  spirit 
ual  world,  and  of  the  modes  by  which  men  may  be 
affected,  while  yet  in  the  flesh,  by  the  influences  and 
occupants  of  that  world  to  which  they  belong  spirit 
ually,  and  also  for  eternity ;  and  of  the  liabilities,  too, 
and  possibilities  incidental  to  human  nature,  because 
of  man's  mixed  constitution,  as  to  body  and  spirit. 
This  is  pneumatology.  And  the  pneumatology  of  the 
Scriptures,  is  that  understanding  of  t^e  spiritual  uni 
verse  which  the  sacred  writers  had,  when  they  wrote 
their  respective  books,  psalms,  and  epistles.  A  matter 
this  of  infinite  importance  !  And  it  never  could  have 
been  so  commonly  lost  sight  of,  as  it  has  been,  but  for 
the  anti-supernaturalism  of  these  latter  times,  and  but 
that  the  best  belief  of  the  best  believer  to-day  is  not 
much  better  than  the  glimmering  perceptions  of  some 
materialist  philosopher,  when  first  the  eyes  of  his 
understanding  begin  to  open  spiritually.  Deny  the 
miracles  of  the  Scriptures,  without  ever  having  known 
of  the  pneumatology  involved  in  them  !  A  man  might 
as  well  denounce  the  calculations  and  predictions  of 
astronomy,  because  they  are  not  of  a  piece  with  his 
pocket  arithmetic. 

And  the  defence  of  the  Scriptures,  in  ignorance  of 
the  pneumatology  pervading  them,  is,  of  course,  but 
blundering  work.  And  with  a  pneumatology  of  his 
own,  however  imperfectly  understood,  the  ordinary 


112  THE    SCRIPTURES    AND   PNEUMATOLOGY. 

Jew,  of  ancient  times  may  have  been  a  much  better 
witness  as  to  miracles  than  many  a  modern  critic,  in 
his  place,  would  have  been,  who,  however  scientific  he 
may  be  as  to  matter,  has  no  science  of  spirit  whatever. 
From  the  want  of  a  Scriptural  pneumatology,  some 
things  in  the  Bible  are  almost  unintelligible,  which 
would  otherwise  be  very  simple.  Also  the  necessities 
of  theologians  in  controversy  have  betrayed  them 
into  some  false  positions  on  Scriptural  subjects,  which 
they  would  never  have  occupied,  if  they  had  known 
the  lay  of  the  land  on  which  they  were  contending,  as 
through  a  pneumatology  properly  ascertained  they 
would  have  done. 

It  has  been  widely  held  as  a  truism,  that  there  never 
have  been  any  other  miracles  than  what  are  recorded 
in  the  Bible,  or  than  certainly  what  happened  in  Bibli 
cal  ages,  or  than  what  were  seals  of  the  Almighty  set 
upon  doctrines.  This,  however,  is  not  Scriptural,  and 
though  it  is  intended  as  a  defence  of  the  Scriptures,  it 
is  ruinous  to  the  philosophy  of  miracles. 

That  the  gods  of  the  heathen  were  stocks  and  stones, 
or,  at  best,  fine  statues,  is  become  even  a  truism.  And 
yet,  notwithstanding  what  two  or  three  passages  in  the 
Old  Testament  may  seem  to  say  differently,  it  is  as 
certain,  apparently,  as  the  reality  of  the  first  com 
mandment,  that  besides  Jehovah  there  were  other 
gods  of  some  kind  to  be  had. 

And  similarly,  at  present,  the  prophets  denounced 
in  the  Old  Testament  are  commonly  supposed,  all  of 
them,  to  have  been  persons  who  pretended  to  proph 
esy,  while  they  knew  themselves  that  they  were  only 
impostors.  Whereas  commonly,  the  false  prophet  was 


THE  SCRIPTURES  AND   PNEUMATOLOGY.  113 

a  man  of  prophetic  nature,  who  was  false  to  the  Lord, 
and  who  allowed  himself  to  be  used  as  a  mouthpiece 
or  other  agency,  by  some  false  god,  some  demon  or  hu 
man  spirit,  who  had  got  lodged,  it  may  have  been,  in 
a  temple,  and  by  some  such  means,  probably,  as  are 
used  now  for  enticing  martins  to  build  in  a  garden. 

And  because  magic  might  seem  to  render  miracles 
less  miraculous,  it  has  been  fancied,  that  there  may 
have  been  anciently,  a  curious  modification  of  lan 
guage  taken  for  granted,  occasionally,  by  which,  when 
a  thing  was  said  to  have  been  done,  it  was  understood 
as  having  simply  been  pretended  to  have  been  done. 
And  thus  in  Exodus,  in  rivalry  with  Moses,  when 
"the  magicians  did  so  with  their  enchantments,"  it 
has  been  held  that  the  proper  understanding  is,  that 
merely  the  magicians  seemed  or  pretended  to  do  so. 

It  has  been  supposed  absolutely,  that  before  Christ, 
there  was  no  belief  in  another  life  among  the  Jews. 
And  on  this  account,  the  revelation  of  a  future  life  by 
Jesus  Christ  is  thought  to  have  been  the  more  pecu 
liar  and  wonderful.  What,  then,  does  all  the  legisla 
tion  by  Moses  mean,  as  to  "  familiar  spirits,"  if  such 
a  thing  as  a  familiar  spirit  had  never  been  conceived 
of?  And  if  it  should  be  said  that  one  might  have 
believed  in  a  spirit,  without  necessarily  having  con 
ceived  that  that  spirit  was  a  man  with  prolonged  ex 
istence,  then  let  the  account  of  the  woman  of  Endor 
be  considered,  —  a  woman  that  had  a  familiar  spirit. 
Through  her,  says  the  narrative,  she  having  seen  "  gods 
ascending  from  the  earth,"  Saul  talked  with  Samuel, 
much  to  his  distress.  The  ordinary  comment  on  this 
interview  says  that  it  was  all  imposture.  But  the 


114  THE   SCRIPTURES  AND   PNEUMATOLOGY. 

Bible  itself  does  not  say  so.  But  even  supposing  that 
one  might  contradict  the  history,  in  that  tlat  manner, 
there  still  would  remain  all  for  which  it  is  here  cited, 
that  among  the  Hebrews,  at  that  early  time,  there  was 
such  a  belief,  in  a  disembodied  existence  of  the  human 
soul,  as  that  Saul  the  king  thought  that  the  prophet 
Samuel,  though  dead  and  buried,  might  yet  have  a 
word  for  him  in  his  sore  extremity.  JSTo  belief, 
among  the  ancient  Jews,  in  another  life,  even  though 
it  were  only  before  Malachi,-  the  last  of  the  proph 
ets  !  It  would  seem  as  though  it  might  have  been 
common  even  as  "  a  familiar  spirit."  Certainly  Jesus 
fully  presumed  on  such  a  belief  amongst  them,  when 
he  said,  "  As  toucjiing  the  resurrection  of  the  dead, 
have  ye  not  read  that  which  was  spoken  unto  you  by 
God,  saying,  I  am  the  God  of  Abraham,  and  the  God 
of  Isaac,  and  the  God  of  Jacob  ?  God  is  not  the  God 
of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living."  And  surely  this  is  a 
plain  statement  of  doctrine.  But  it  may  be  asked, 
what,  then,  was  meant  by  St.  Paul  when  he  wrote  that 
our  Saviour  Jesus  Christ  "  hath  abolished  death,  and 
hath  brought  life  and  immortality  to  light,  through 
the  gospel "  ?  Perhaps  this  may  mean  something  far 
in  advance,  doctrinally,  of  what  is  commonly  thought. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  and  history,  it  is  certain  that,  at 
the  appearing  of  our  Saviour,  the  Jews  did  all  believe 
in  a  life  to  come,  with  the  exception  of  the  small  sect 
of  Sadducees.  But  by  those  words  of  his,  what,  then, 
did  St.  Paul  mean,  over  and  above  the  general  belief 
of  the  time  ?  He  says  that  life  and  immortality  were 
brought  to  light ;  he  does  not  say  that  they  were 
brought  out  of  utter  darkness;  but  he  adds,  that  it 


THE   SCRIPTURES   AND   PNEUMATOLOGY.  115 

was  by  the  gospel.  By  the  visible  resurrection  of 
Christ,  it  was  evident  that  there  was  a  way  by  which 
men  might  live  again.  But  besides  that,  though 
simultaneously  with  that  knowledge,  by  the  spirit  of 
Christ,  the  connections  between  this  world  and  the  next 
were  made  manifest,  and  especially  as  regards  faith 
and  righteousness.  Because  of  the  spirit  which  they 
had  got  from  him,  all  the  early  Christians  felt  them 
selves  as  though  raised  from  the  dead  in  Christ.  In 
Greece  and  Rome,  a  life  after  death  was  as  distinctly 
believed  in  by  the  Pagans  as  it  is  to-day  at  Borne  or 
Athens.  But  why,  then,  was  not  ancient  literature 
more  tinged  by  some  coloring  reflected  from  the  world 
believed  in  ?  Precisely  because  the  Pagans  were 
without  Christ.  Life  and  immortality  were  believed 
to  exist,  but  they  were  not  brought  to  light  as  they 
are  by  the  gospel ;  were  not  felt  as  familiarly  as  Chris 
tians  feel  them  ;  were  not  believed  in,  because  of  the 
indwelling  Spirit,  which  teaches,  but  were  credited 
mainly  because  of  ghost-stories,  which  were  true 
enough,  perhaps,  in  themselves,  but  which  could  affect 
only  the  externality  of  a  man's  nature,  and  not  his 
inmost  heart,  out  of  which  are  the  issues  of  life  for 
this  world  and  the  world  which  is  to  come,  —  thought, 
speech,  and  holiness,  literature  and  righteous  action. 

In  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  there  is  a  word  which  is 
commonly  translated  "grave,"  but  sometimes  when 
that  could  not  possibly  be  the  rendering,  it  is  trans 
lated  "hell."  But  it  means  neither;  and  it  means 
simply  and  exactly  the  place  of  souls.  The  word  is 
"  sheol."  "  The  place  of  ghosts "  is  the  meaning  of 
the  word,  according  to  the  Hebrew  and  Chaldee  Lexicon 


116  THE   SCRIPTURES   AND   PNEUMATOLOGY. 

of  Dr.  G.  B.  Winer,  published  in  Leipsic.  But  how, 
then,  does  it  happen  that  a  mistranslation  of  the  word 
into  "  grave,"  or  "  hell,"  should  run  throughout  the  Old 
Testament  ?  It  has  been  for  the  same  reason,  for  which 
that  mistranslation  has  been  recently  perpetuated  in  a 
late  Cyclopaedia,  published  in  England.  It  was  done 
originally,  because  the  early  English  translators  of  the 
Bible  could  not  think  that  any  word  therein  could  possi 
bly  lend  any  countenance  to  the  Catholic  doctrine  of 
purgatory,  or  ought  to.  The  place  of  souls  might  have 
been  understood  as  purgatory  possibly,  and  so  it  was 
translated  either  into  hell  outright,  or  else  into  the  grave. 
And  the  consequence  of  this  is  to  the  English  reader, 
that  the  ancient  Hebrews,  from  their  Scriptures,  would 
seem  to  have  been  a  people  who  almost  never  had  a 
thought  of  another  life,  except  now  and  then  of  hell, 
topographically.  The  word  "  hades  "  is  mistranslated 
in  the  New  Testament  in  much  the  same  way.  This 
all,  at  present,  would  be  a  great  disgrace  to  the  quarter 
where  any  authority  or  responsibility  on  the  matter 
may  belong,  only  that  every  Protestant  living,  perhaps, 
by  his  own  mental  condition,  is  more  or  less  accessory 
to  it.  The  Eabbi  Ben  Levi  assured  Dr.  Priestley  in  a 
printed  letter,  that  through  Moses  there  was  known  to 
the  Jews  the  certainty  of  a  life  hereafter.  And  no 
doubt  this  was  much  to  the  philosophic  doctor's 
amazement  and  amusement,  both.  For  on  this  subject, 
about  every  good  Protestant,  the  words  are  true  which 
Paul  wrote  to  the  Corinthians  in  regard  to  a  kindred 
subject  of  ignorance.  "  But  even  unto  this  day,  when 
Moses  is  read,  the  veil  is  upon  their  heart." 

The  demoniacs  are  another  illustration  of  the  anti- 


THE   SCRIPTURES   AND   PNEUMATOLOGY.  117 

supernatural  understanding,  with  which  the  Scriptures 
are  read  by  many  implicit  believers  of  the  New  Testa 
ment,  both  scholars  and  pietists.  "The  demoniacs 
were  merely  epileptic  patients,"  say  certain  ponderous 
theologians.  And  in  this  opinion  certain  other  theolo 
gians  acquiesce,  belonging  to  two  or  three  different 
schools,  and  they  say,  "  We  do  not  see  what  else  they 
could  have  been."  And  so  the  demoniacs  of  the  New 
Testament  are  to  be  accounted  epileptics,  mainly  be 
cause  modern  theology  cannot  conceive  of  a  demoniac. 
And  why  cannot  modern  theology  conceive  of  a  de 
moniac  ?  Because  it  can  hardly  even  conceive  of  a 
prophet ;  because  of  the  nature  of  prophecy  it  has 
scarcely  a  word  to  say ;  and  because,  though  intensely 
spiritual  with  some  professors,  it  is  yet  almost  as  desti 
tute  of  pneumatology  as  materialism  itself.  And  yet 
in  the  Gospels,  if  there  be  any  one  thing  which  would 
seem  to  be  plainer  than  another,  because  of  the  many 
times  when  it  is  mentioned,  and  the  various  ways  in 
which  it  is  presented,  and  the  solemn  manner  also  in 
which  it  is  complicated  with  the  highest  claims  of  Je 
sus  as  the  Christ,  —  that  one  tiling  would  seem  to  be  the 
reality  of  spiritual  possession,  the  certainty  that  there 
have  been  demoniacs.  Possession  by  intruding  un 
clean  spirits,  is  a  liability  to  which  human  beings  are 
subject  by  nature.  It  is  a  human  trouble,  as  rare,  per 
haps,  as  the  plague  or  the  black  death,  but  historically 
just  as  certain.  Nor  has  it  been  an  abnormal  thing,  prob 
ably.  But  whenever  it  has  happened,  no  doubt,  it  has 
been  as  the  result  of  laws  as  definite  as  those  which  used 
to  conduce  to  leprosy,  or  as  those  which  are  now  con 
cerned  with  cholera.  But  now  if  really  devils,  demons, 


118  THE   SCRIPTURES  AND   PNEUMATOLOGY. 

unclean  spirits,  or  intruding  spirits  of  any  degree  of 
unworthiness,  were  ever  cast  out  of  men  by  Jesus 
Christ  or  his  apostles,  then  is  this  world  a  very  differ 
ent  place  from  the  world  which  Buckle  knew  all  about. 

When  the  Reformers  broke  away  from  the  Catholic 
Church,  they  did  leave,  probably,  much  bad  practice 
behind  them,  but  they  abandoned  also  some  good  the 
ology,  as  well  perhaps  as  much  that  was  bad,  and  also 
a  great  deal  of  useful  pneumatology,  besides  probably 
information,  which  was  of  an  esoteric,  oral  character, 
though  not  the  less  important  on  that  account.  And 
besides  this,  they  wrenched  themselves  from  Catholi 
cism  so  violently  as  to  twist  themselves,  and  distort 
their  judgments.  But  indeed  that  wrench  away  could 
not  well  have  been  different  from  what  it  was,  when 
an  argument,  whether  good  or  poor,  was  foredoomed 
to  conclude  with  a  death  at  the  stake.  However,  Prot 
estants  complain,  and  not  unfairly,  of  the  vulgate  ver 
sion  of  the  Bible,  as  being  Roman  Catholic.  But 
certainly  the  mistranslation  of  the  word  "  sheol "  into 
"  hell "  or  "  grave "  makes  the  authorized  version  of 
England  be  essentially  Protestant. 

In  the  Bible,  managed  as  it  has  been  by  prejudiced 
translators  and  sectarian  commentators,  the  miracles 
narrated  are  more  miraculous,  that  is,  they  are  prima 
rily  less  credible,  than  they  ought  to  be ;  because  the 
general  narrative  and  doctrine  are  not  in  as  good  keep 
ing  with  them  as  they  ought  to  be,  in  some  respects. 
The  prophet  Samuel,  emerging  from  a  state  of  corrup 
tion  in  a  hole  in  the  ground,  would  be  one  thing ;  but 
a  very  different  thing  indeed,  as  to  conceivableness  and 
credibility,  would  be  the  prophet  Samuel  emerging  on 


THE   SCRIPTURES  AND  PNEUMATOLOGY.  119 

mortal  vision,  like  "gods  ascending  from  the  earth,"  for 
people  who  believed  that  there  was  a  "  slieol,"  a  region 
of  departed  spirits.  When  the  patriarch  Jacob  was  at 
the  end  of  his  life,  he  said, "  I  am  to  be  gathered  unto 
my  people  :  bury  me  with  my  fathers,  in  the  cave  that 
is  in  the  field  of  Ephron  the  Hittite."  It  was  the 
death  of  a  man  who  had  no  knowledge  of  a  hereafter, 
many  theologians  have  said.  But  now  how  differently 
these  words  sound,  if  it  be  supposed,  on  perhaps  a  good 
translation  of  his  words,  that  in  his  grief  for  his  son 
Joseph,  "  He  refused  to  be  comforted,  and  he  said,  Tor 
I  will  go  down  to  the  assembled  spirits,  unto  my  son 


mourning.' " 


Miracles  for  people,  whose  fathers  and  forefathers 
were  living  souls,  angel- visits  to  people  who  believed 
in  a  disembodied  life,  would  seem  to  have  been  more 
probable  in  themselves,  and  more  credible,  than  as 
though  they  had  happened  among  persons  who  were 
without  any  knowledge  of  another  world,  and  who  were 
also  without  any  of  the  ways  of  feeling  which  are  akin 
to  that  knowledge.  The  Catholic  Church  may  perhaps 
formerly  have  made  too  much  of  the  Supernatural; 
but  through  recoil  and  accidentally,  Protestantism 
from  its  very  beginning  would  seem  to  have  had  some 
thing  of  an  undue  tendency  towards  anti-supernatural- 
ism.  The  effect  of  this  inherited  prejudice,  a  student 
has  got  to  allow  for,  if  he  would  find  his  right  place 
on  the  field  of  thought. 


MIRACLES  AND   SCIENCE. 


MULTITUDES  who.  read  the  Scriptures  have 
quick  eyes  for  the  texts  which  seem  to  concern 
the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  or  the  nature  of  baptism, 
or  the  manner  of  church-government.  But  they  are 
very  few  indeed  who  have  an  eye  for  the  supernatu 
ral.  Long  ago,  even  Richard  Baxter,  towards  even  the 
end  of  his  life,  ingenuously  confessed  how  much  he 
had  been  astonished,  on  counting  up,  at  the  number  of 
occasions  on  which  angels  are  mentioned  in  the  Bible. 
As  to  there  being  a  science  of  spirit  involved  in  the 
Scriptures,  how  very  few  people  ever  think  of  such  a 
thing  !  And  of  those  who  attack  the  credibility  of  the 
Scriptures,  as  compromising  the  dignity  of  Jehovah 
by  making  him  appear  to  men  and  talk  with  them, 
and  give  them  visions,  how  very  few  remember  that 
already  and  a  very  long  time  ago  it  had  been  said,  "  No 
man  hath  seen  God  at  any  time  "  !  And  of  these  in 
considerate  critics,  how  much  fewer  still  are  they  who 
have  tried  what  Maimonides  —  good  old  Rabbi — could 
do  for  them,  even  though  indisposed  to  follow  him 
entirely !  Thus  writes  Maimonides  in  his  book 
"  Gad  "  :  "  Know  also  that  all  the  prophets  who  men 
tion  prophecy  as  coming  to  them  ascribe  it  either  to  an 
angel  or  to  the  blessed  God,  although  it  was  by  means 
of  an  angel,  without  doubt.  On  this  point,  our  rabbies 


MIRACLES   AND   SCIENCE.  121 

of  blessed  memory  long  ago  delivered  their  opinion  in 
explaining,  '  And  the  Lord  said  to  her '  thus,  —  by 
means  of  an  angel.  And  know  further,  that  whenever 
it  is  written  that  an  angel  spake  with  one,  or  that  the 
word  of  the  Lord  came  to  him,  this  has  not  taken 
place  in  any  other  way  than  in  a  dream,  or  in  a  pro 
phetic  vision.  There  is  an  ancient  agada  respecting 
communications  made  to  the  prophets,  as  they  are  re 
counted  in  the  prophetic  books,  which  states  that  they 
were  made  in  four  ways.  First,  the  prophet  makes 
known  that  the  communication  was  made  by  an  angel 
in  a  dream  or  vision.  Secondly,  he  merely  mentions 
the  communication  of  the  angel  to  him,  without  ex 
plaining  that  it  was  made  in  a  dream  or  vision,  because 
of  the  well-established  principle  that  prophecy  is  con 
fined  to  one  or  other  of  these  two  methods,  '  I.  will 
make  myself  known  to  him  in  a  vision,  I  will  speak 
unto  him  in  a  dream.'  Thirdly,  the  angel  is  not  men 
tioned  at  all;  but  the  communication  is  ascribed  to 
God,  the  Blessed  One,  who  speaks  it  to  him,  but  who 
makes  known  that  it  comes  to  him  in  a  vision  or 
dream.  Fourthly,  the  prophet  simply  declares  that 
God  spoke  to  him,  or  said  to  him,  do  this,  or  say  this, 
without  explaining,  either  by  mentioning  an  angel,  or 
by  mentioning  a  dream,  on  account  of  the  well-estab 
lished,  fundamental  principle,  that  prophecy  or  pro 
phetic  revelation  comes  only  in  dream  or  in  vision, 
and  through  the  agency  of  an  angel."  And  in  expla 
nation  of  another  point,  Maimonides  adds,  "  Further 
more  it  ought  to  be  known  that  the  expression  '  And 
the  Lord  said  to  such  an  one '  is  used  when,  strictly 
speaking,  he  has  no  prophetic  vision,  but  the  commu- 
6 


122  MIRACLES   AND   SCIENCE. 

nication  was  made  to  him  by  means  of  a  prophet."  It 
will  be  remembered,  of  course,  that  by  vision  is  meant 
what  is  experienced  in  a  preternatural,  trance-like 
state.  Thus,  at  Joppa,  the  Apostle  Peter  "  fell  into  a 
trance,  and  saw  heaven  opened,  and  a  certain  vessel 
descending  unto  him."  But  at  Jerusalem,  giving  an 
account  of  this  experience,  he  said,  "  I  was  in  the  city 
of  Joppa,  praying ;  and,  in  a  trance,  I  saw  a  vision,  a 
certain  vessel  descend."  This  is  the  meaning  of  the 
word  "  vision,"  as  it  is  used  by  Maimonides ;  it  is  a 
vision  during  a  trance. 

Does  all  this  seem  strange  ?  Yet  it  is  all,  or  very 
nearly  all  in  the  Old  Testament  itself,  and  not  very 
hard  to  find ;  only  that  we  are  "  slow  of  heart  to  be 
lieve  all  that  the  prophets  have  spoken,"  and  need  for 
our  enlightenment  almost  a  miracle,  like  that  with 
which  Christ  favored  the  two  disciples,  on  their  walk 
from  Jerusalem  to  Emmaus,  when  he  expounded  the 
Scriptures,  beginning  at  Moses  and  all  the  prophets. 
Christian  divines  of  all  ages,  and  some  of  the  greatest, 
have  agreed  with  the  statement  just  quoted  from 
Maimonides.  But  indeed,  a  thousand  years  before  the 
Rabbi,  one  of  the  earliest  of  the  Christian  fathers, 
Justin  Martyr,  had  written,  "  He,  whom  we  call  the 
Creator  of  all  things,  has  never  been  seen  by  any 
body  ;  nor  has  he  ever  of  himself  spoken  to  any 
man."  Philip  a  Limborch,  explaining  in  what  sense 
Moses  saw  God  face  to  face,  on  a  comparison  of 
texts,  says,  "  Hence  it  results  that  the  whole  revela 
tion  made  to  Moses  was  by  the  instrumentality  of  an 
angel,  who  represented  God,  and  who  was  therefore 
exactly  like  God  himself  speaking."  It  was  to  that 


MIRACLES   AND   SCIENCE.  123 

abbreviated  way  of  describing  revelation  that  Jesus 
perhaps  referred  when,  in  argument  with  the  readers 
of  the  Old  Testament,  he  said,  "  If  he  called  them 
gods,  unto  whom  the  word  of  God  came,  and  the 
Scripture  cannot  be  broken."  Soon  after  the  resur 
rection  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  Jews  were  addressed  by 
Stephen  as  having  "received  the  law  by  the  dispo 
sition  of  angels."  This  view  of  the  Jewish  revela 
tion  is  evidently  taken  for  granted  in  the  Epistle  to 
the  Galatians.  And  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews 
Judaism  is  described  as  "  the  word  spoken  by  angels." 
And  writing  to  Timothy,  Paul  said  that  the  appearing 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  was  what  "  in  his  times  he 
shall  show,  who  is  the  blessed  and  only  Potentate, 
the  King  of  kings,  and  Lord  of  lords ;  who  only  hath 
immortality,  dwelling  in  the  light  which  no  man  can 
approach  unto  ;  whom  no  man  hath  seen,  nor  can  see  : 
to  whom  be  honor  and  ppwer  everlasting."  This  is 
not  quite  the  state  of  things  spiritually,  which  some 
people  would  seem  to  suppose.  And  there  must  be 
agencies  active  in  this  universe,  and  after  a  manner 
which  would  surprise  not  materialists  only,  but  some 
very  good  Christians  also. 

After  what  has  preceded,  it  will  strike  the  reader 
more ;  but  otherwise  how  few  people  are  ever  prop 
erly  impressed  by  the  commencement  of  the  Book 
of  Eevelation !  "  The  Eevelation  of  Jesus  Christ, 
which  God  gave  unto  him,  to  show  unto  his  servants 
things  which  must  shortly  come  to  pass ;  and  he  sent 
and  signified  it  by  his  angel  unto  his  servant  John  : 
who  bare  record  of  the  word  of  God,  and  of  the  testi 
mony  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  of  all  things  that  he  saw." 


124  MIRACLES   AND   SCIENCE. 

The  Eevelation  was  given  by  God  to  Jesus  Christ; 
and  by  Jesus  Christ  it  was  communicated  to  an  angel; 
arid  by  the  angel  it  was  delivered  to  John :  and  by 
John  it  was  published  in  the  Church,  —  a  revelation 
from  the  Father  of  Lights,  that  came  down  from 
above,  and,  as  it  were,  through  one  world  and  an 
other,  till  it  reached  this  earth,  to  show  unto  his  ser 
vants  things  which  must  shortly  come  to  pass. 

Many  a  Christian  divine  would  be  astonished  at  the 
position  with  which  he  would  have  to  take  up,  if  he 
were  asked  by  a  Jew  to  tell  him,  out  of  the  Book  of 
Acts  precisely  and  exactly,  how  it  was  that  Christian 
Jews  felt  themselves  authorized  to  baptize  and  accept 
Gentiles  as  Christians.  And  many  a  good  Christian, 
who  thinks  that  he  knows  all  about  Providence,  would 
feel  himself,  as  it  were,  called  away  into  a  strange  re 
gion,  if  he  were  asked  to  explain  why  God  commu 
nicated  with  the  Jews  through  angels,  while  all  the 
while  not  a  sparrow  fell  to  the  ground  without  his 
knowledge,  nor  was  there  a  man  even  but  on  his  head 
the  hairs  were  all  numbered. 

If  the  miracles  of  the  Bible  seem  incredible  to  any 
one,  let  him  bethink  himself  that  he  perhaps  has 
never  read  the  Scriptures ;  for  passing  the  eye  over 
the  words  is  certainly  not  the  same  as  catching  the 
sense.  Many  a  man  has  defended  the  reality  of  mira 
cles,  out  of  a  Bible  which  was  blinded  against  him  by 
his  own  unconscious  anti-supernaturalism.  And  many 
a  disbeliever,  if  he  knew  the  spiritual  philosophy  in 
volved  in  the  Scriptures,  would  accept  both  miracles 
and  doctrine  alike,  and  at  once. 

When  the  words  are  read  in  church,  "  The  word  of 


MIRACLES   AND   SCIENCE.  125 

the  Lord  came,"  how  few  people  have  ever  wondered 
as  to  how  it  came,  or  as  to  how  Isaiah  or  Hosea  re 
ceived  it !  And  worse  still  than  this,  there  are  persons 
who  deride  the  prophets,  who  yet  have  never  thought, 
nor  inquired,  nor  even  suspected,  whether  possibly  a 
prophet  might  not  have  been  an  honest  man,  with 
some  constitutional  peculiarity,  fitting  him  for  proph 
ecy.  "  And  he  said,  Hear  now  my  words :  if  there 
be  a  prophet  among  you,  I  the  Lord  will  make  my 
self  known  unto  him  in  a  vision,  and  will  speak  unto 
him  in  a  dream."  There  are  many  scientific  men  who 
would  not  doubt,  for  a  moment,  but  that  they  know 
proportionately  as  much  about  Christianity  as  they  do 
about  science.  And  yet,  out  of  all  their  multitude, 
for  one  man  who  could  define  the  nature  of  prophecy, 
there  must  be  a  thousand  utterly  ignorant  about  it, 
though  they  know  well  about  chemical  affinities  as 
operative  on  the  floor  of  the  ocean,  and  have  curious 
information  as  to  bivalves,  and  as  to  the  manner  in 
which  flat  fish  are  acted  upon  by  light  reflected  from 
below. 

Miracles  incredible  as  narrated  in  the  Scriptures, — 
it  is  no  wonder  that  they  should  have  become  so,  to 
some  persons  ;  because  so  many  connections  of  prob 
ability  and  credibility  have  been  stripped  away  from 
them,  or  have  been  at  least  forgotten.  And  now  for 
this  state  of  things  what  is  the  remedy  ?  It  will 
come  not  with  argument  at  all,  perhaps ;  nor  will  it 
probably  result  much  from  any  forthcoming  informa 
tion  ;  but  it  will  come  with  time  and  the  grace  of 
God;  and  for  some  persons  it  may  be  that  it  will 
come  in  a  way  not  altogether  alien  to  that  by  which 


126  MIRACLES  AND   SCIENCE. 

the  earliest  Christians,  on  the  reappearance  of  their 
crucified  Lord,  were  mentally  reinstated  after  their 
bewilderment.  "Then  opened  he  their  understand 
ing,  that  they  might  understand  the  Scriptures." 

And  indeed  not  the  Bible  only,  but  even  the  globe 
itself,  is  to  a  man  what  simply  himself  he  is  ready  to 
have  it  be.  To  one  man  this  earth  is  a  heap  of  dirt 
in  which  to  worm  his  way ;  and  to  the  red  Indian, 
uncorrupted,  it  was  a  broad  hunting-field,  on  which 
the  Great  Spirit  showed  him  favors.  To  one  man  it 
is  chiefly  of  interest  as  having  been  once  the  play 
thing  of  natural  forces,  geologically,  the  ways  of 
whose  gambolling  he  delights  to  trace  and  classify. 
While  in  the  eyes  of  another  it  is  like  a  great  egg, 
with  vital  powers  operative  in  it  and  about  it,  which 
are  instructive  to  watch.  And  for  still  another  man, 
scientifically,  it  is  like  a  book  of  common  understand 
ing  between  himself  and  the  Creator.  And  for  still 
another  student  of  science  the  earth,  with  all  its  ful 
ness  of  laws  chemical,  dynamic,  and  vital,  is  as  to 
wards  God  but  "  the  hiding  of  his  power/'  And  an 
other  rarer  person  still,  feels  as  though  continually  a 
voice  were  calling  to  him,  "  The  place  whereon  thou 
standest  is  holy  ground,"  because  of  the  heavenly 
affinities  with  which  the  world  is  wrapped  about  for 
believing  souls  ;  because  of  what  prayer  effects  all 
round  the  earth ;  and  because  of  the  manner  in  which 
the  forces  of  nature  concur  with  spirit  for  spiritual 
ends.  And  to  spirits  of  different  orders,  it  is  con 
ceivable  that  our  earth  varies  still  more  than  it  does 
to  the  feelings  respectively  of  its  own  inhabitants. 
And  even  of  spirits,  who  have  departed  from  the  life 


MIRACLES   AND  SCIENCE.  127 

of  this  earth,  there  is  an  old  philosophy,  according  to 
which,  for  various  reasons,  one  spirit  might  for  a  while 
keep  a  clear  view  of  the  earth  and  its  inhabitants, 
while  another  might  have  lost  all  sight  of  it,  with  his 
last  mortal  breath.  And  it  is  conceivable,  too,  that 
the  most  familiar  spot  in  this  world  is  what  we  should 
not  know,  if  we  could  look  at  it  through  the  eyes  of 
a  seraph. 

And  what  happened  for  his  servant  at* the  instance 
of  the  prophet  Elisha,  "  Lord,  I  pray  thee,  open  his 
eyes  that  he  may  see,"  —  were  this  done  for  any  man 
to-day,  what  a  change,  in  a  moment,  there  would  be 
in  everything  about  him !  The  solid  earth,  perhaps, 
would  have  become  but  as  a  vapor,  just  dense  enough 
to  hold  the  spirit  of  nature  and  manifest  its  play  and 
glow ;  while  distances  above,  around,  and  below  would 
be  felt  to  be  at  once  infinitely  great  and  curiously 
small,  changing,  so  to  say,  with  the  spectator's  chang 
ing  mind.  Also,  for  that  man,  the  clouds  and  atmos 
phere  would  have  disappeared,  while  the  invisible 
ether  perhaps  would  have  become  visible,  and  alive 
with  currents  of  fluid  more  subtile  than  electricity, 
and  with  angels  passing  in  glory  like  shooting  stars, 
and  with  resemblances  of  auroras  and  seas  of  gold, 
and  also  with  threads  of  sympathy  between  souls  on 
earth  and  souls  departed,  and  which  may  be  none  the 
less  real  or  useful,  for  not  being  known  of,  on  either 
side.  Also  with  some  appearance,  not  far  from  him, 
some  silvery,  golden  sheen,  which  he  might  notice, 
he  might  have  an  experience  like  that  of  St.  John 
the  Divine,  and  see  the  smoke  of  incense,  with  pray 
ers  of  saints,  ascending  up  before  God,  from  a  golden 


128  MIRACLES  AND  SCIENCE. 

censer  in  an  angel's  hand.  And  after  this  in  a  mo 
ment,  with  merely  remembering  his  dead  father,  he 
might  find  himself,  face  to  face  with  him.  And  then, 
as  this  opening  of  his  eyes  was  closing,  and  while  his 
sight  was  becoming  again  that  simply  of  "  the  natural 
man,"  he  might  retain  perhaps,  out  of  all  that  he  had 
seen,  only  some  few  incongruous  reminiscences,  and  a 
sense  that  the  great  glory  itself  of  the  vision  was 
what  it  is  not  possible  for  a  man  to  utter. 

World  beyond  world  !  World  within  world  !  Not 
only  are  the  miracles  of  the  Scriptures  credible,  but 
because  of  what  information  now  faith  can  extract 
from  science,  more  and  more  natural  does  the  super 
natural  seem  to  become,  and  more  and  more  super 
natural,  because  of  its  susceptibilities,  does  the  king 
dom  of  nature  seem  to  grow. 

A  glimpse  about  us  with  those  eyes,  which  will  open 
for  us  first  probably  only  after  death,  —  a  glimpse  with 
those  eyes,  with  which  we  are  to  see  to  all  eternity,  — 
just  a  glimpse  of  the  spiritual  world,  which  indeed 
already  we  are  living  in,  though  we  are  cased  against 
it  by  the  flesh,  —  with  just  one  glimpse  we  should 
feel,  that  in  such  a  world  as  there  is  about  us,  and 
that  with  such  worlds  within  worlds,  as  there  are 
which  probably  concern  us,  that  the  promises  of 
Christ  may  yet  perhaps  be  to  be  fulfilled,  and  that 
greater  works  than  have  yet  been  done,  Christians 
may  yet  do  by  invoking,  in  faith,  Him  of  that  name, 
which  is  above  every  name,  and  unto  whom  morals, 
politics,  and  science,  rule,  authority,  and  power,  and  all 
things,  are  to  be  subdued.  And  with  that  one  glimpse, 
too,  what  impossibilities  as  to  belief  would  vanish ! 


MIRACLES   AND   SCIENCE.  129 

For  in  that  widened  sphere,  vitally  connected  with 
humanity,  that  the  spirit  of  demons  might  be  com 
petent  to  add  confusion  to  human  affairs,  by  working 
miracles,  in  some  way  or  other,  on  the  road,  and  at  the 
time  contemplated  in  the  book  of  Kevelation,  —  this 
all  would  seem  to  be  not  much  more  improbable  than 
that  wicked  rulers  should  ever  be  backed  by  genius. 
And  between  the  highest  and  the  lowest  sources  of 
miracles,  foretold  in  the  New  Testament,  there  would 
seem  to  be  place  for  those  spirits,  about  whom  there  is 
a  forewarning  by  St.  John,  that  they  ought  not  to  be 
believed  as  spirits  simply,  but  that  they  should  be 
tried  as  to  their  being  of  God,  because  that  actually 
and  already,  and  to  John's  own  knowledge,  and  as 
though  by  inspiration  from  spirits,  there  were  many 
false  prophets  "  gone  out  into  the  world." 

Miracles  impossible  because  of  science !  They  are 
impossible  to  the  belief  of  a  man,  simply  because  of 
the  conceit  which  comes  of  learning,  but  in  no  other 
way.  For  really  the  powers  of  nature,  as  they  are 
discovered  by  science,  would  seem  to  be  the  ready, 
pliant  agencies  of  supernatural  purposes.  Why  should 
not  the  demons  of  Plato's  theology  be  as  much  at 
home  on  magnetic  currents  as  men  are  in  steamboats  ? 
Why  should  not  an  angel  be  able  to  approach  this 
earth,  by  subordinating  electricity  to  his  use,  as  well 
as  Benjamin  Franklin  have  been  able  to  draw,  and 
concentrate,  and  enslave  it  for  human  purposes  ?  Sci 
ence  !  what  has  science,  in  the  court  of  common  sense, 
to  say  against  the  miracles  of  healing,  by  a  word  or  a 
touch,  which  are  told  of  in  the  Scriptures  ?  It  has 
nothing,  absolutely  nothing  whatever  to  say,  except 
6*  i 


130  MIRACLES   AND   SCIENCE. 

that  it  has  not  heard  of  such  things  of  late  centuries, 
and  that  they  do  not  appear  ever  to  have  been  very 
common.  But  that  is  nothing  for  science  to  tell.  To 
an  angel  of  wisdom,  or  to  the  eyes  of  the  best  inhab 
itant  of  the  star  Sirius,  imported  into  this  earth,  as 
a  judge,  belladonna  would  not  seem  to  be  any  more 
likely,  as  a  curative  agent,  than  a  man's  hand.  And 
when  it  is  remembered  what  a  man's  hand  may  be  as 
a  channel,  —  how  it  is  connected  with  his  brain,  and 
through  his  brain  with  a  wide  universe  of  forces 
known  and  occult,  and  with  God,  the  fountain-head 
of  all  power ;  and  when,  by  Christians,  not  as  neces 
sary  to  the  argument  but  additionally,  it  is  remem 
bered  that  through  the  Spirit,  God  was  in  Christ,  and 
Christ  in  his  apostles  and  others,  it  does  not  then  seem 
to  be  incredible,  even  in  itself,  that  the  human  hand, 
stretched  forth  in  faith,  may  have  been  as  efficient  for 
healing  as  dried  herbs  at  their  best,  and  quicker  than 
they  as  to  operation.  In  the  Gospel  of  Luke  it  is 
written  that  "  it  came  to  pass,  when  he  was  in  a  cer 
tain  city,  behold  a  man  full  of  leprosy,  who,  seeing 
Jesus,  fell  on  his  face  and  besought  him,  saying,  Lord, 
if  thou  wilt,  thou  canst  make  me  clean.  And  he  put 
forth  his  hand,  and  touched  him,  saying,  I  will :  be 
thou  clean.  And  immediately  the  leprosy  departed 
from  him." 


THE  SPIRIT  AND  THE  PROPHETS  THEREOF. 

AND  now  let  miracles  be  considered  in  connection 
with  persons.  There  is  a  restricted  use  of  the 
word  "  miracle,"  as  what  might  concern  only  material 
substances.  But  it  is  not  Scriptural.  And  there  is  a 
restricted  use  of  the  word  "prophet,"  by  which  it 
means  simply  a  foreteller.  But  neither  is  this  Scrip 
tural.  In  the  Scriptures  themselves,  prophets  are  not 
all  of  one  class.  Also  in  the  times  of  the  Scriptures, 
a  man  was  specially  a  prophet  who  filled  officially  and 
by  public  recognition  the  place  of  a  prophet.  Daniel 
was  a  prophet,  but  he  was  also  an  exile  in  Babylon ; 
and  it  may  be  for  this  reason  that,  in  a  Hebrew  Bible, 
the  book  of  Daniel  is  not  printed  along  with  the  books 
of  the  prophets,  but  elsewhere.  Then  again,  however, 
Abraham  is  styled  a  prophet.  But  some  little  varia 
tion  in  the  use  of  words  during  two  thousand  years 
is  of  course  to  be  expected.  And  so,  in  the  account 
of  Saul's  first  visit  to  Samuel,  it  is  written  "  he  that 
is  now  called  a  prophet  was  before  time  called  a  Seer." 
What,  then,  was  a  prophet  ?  He  was  a  channel  for 
spirit,  —  for  the  Spirit  of  God,  or  for  the  inspiration 
of  an  "  evil  spirit " ;  he  may  have  been,  according  to 
Jeremiah,  one  of  "  the  prophets  that  prophesy  lies," 
or  one  of  "the  prophets  of  the  deceit  of  their  own 
heart,"  or  he  may  have  been  according  to  what  is  per- 


132  THE   SPIRIT   AND 

haps  th.e  better  understanding  of  a  text  in  Zechariah, 
the  prophet  of  "  an  unclean  spirit " ;  he  may  have 
"prophesied  in  the  name  of  the  Lord,"  or  he  may 
have  "  prophesied  by  Baal."  He  was  a  man  through 
whom  incorporeal,  intelligent  power  expressed  itself, 
by  thoughts  foreign  to  the  man's  mind,  or  by  actions 
passing  human  ability,  as  to  quality  or  intensity.  In 
this  definition,  the  word  "  through "  is  used  in  its 
broader  signification,  and  as  meaning  sometimes  "  con 
currently  with,"  and  thereby  as  embracing  some 
miracles,  which  were  begun  and  finished  outside  of 
the  person  of  the  prophet,  but  yet  withinside  of  a 
sphere,  wherein  was  available  that  peculiarity  of  his 
constitution  whereby  he  was  prophetic.  Though  also 
it  would  seem  as  though  rfome  few  of  the  miracles 
narrated  in  the  Bible,  and  especially  in  the  earlier 
ages,  may  perhaps  have  been  independent  of  the  per 
son  of  a  prophet,  and  connected  with  him  simply  as 
an  associate  assistance. 

But  there  are  yet  two  or  three  other  things  to  be 
noticed.  Balaam  is  not  called  a  prophet,  notwith 
standing  that  wonderful  history,  in  which  he  was  con 
cerned  :  and  notwithstanding  that  "  the  Spirit  of  God 
came  upon  him " ;  and  notwithstanding  that  he  was 
Balaam,  the  son  of  Beor,  "  which  heard  the  words  of 
God,  and  knew  the  knowledge  of  the  Most  High, 
which  saw  the  vision  of  the  Almighty,  falling  into  a 
trance,  but  having  his  eyes  open."  This  is  an  exact 
description  of  the  prophetic  state.  Nor  yet  was  Gid 
eon  called  a  prophet,  notwithstanding  his  having  been 
addressed  by  an  angel,  and  been  favored  with  mira 
cles,  and  notwithstanding  that  "  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord 


THE  PROPHETS  THEREOF.  133 

came  upon  Gideon."  But  this  may  have  been  because 
of  his  never  having  had  any  experience  like  the  special 
characteristic  of  a  prophet,  because  he  never  "  saw  the 
vision  of  the  Almighty,  falling  into  a  trance,  but  hav 
ing  his  eyes  open."  Also  as  used  by  St.  Paul,  proph 
ecy  is  simply  speaking  from  the  Spirit,  and  might* 
seem  to  be  of  no  kinship  with  miracles.  But  then 
there  are  those  famous  words  addressed  to  the  Co 
rinthians,  in  which  miracles  and  prophecy  are  said  to 
be  of  the  same  origin,  and  to  be  indeed  one  and  the 
same  thing,  at  their  coming  forth  from  spirit  into 
nature.  "  There  are  diversities  of  operations,  but  it  is 
the  same  God  which  worketh  all  in  all,"  quickening, 
illuminating,  and  endowing  men,  according  as  they 
are  susceptible  and  willing.  "The  manifestation  of 
the  Spirit  is  given  to  every  man  to  profit  withal.  For 
to  one  is  given  by  the  Spirit  the  word  of  wisdom ;  to 
another  the  word  of  knowledge  by  the  same  Spirit ;  to 
another  faith  by  the  same  Spirit ;  to  another  the  gifts 
of  healing  by  the  same  Spirit ;  to  another  the  working 
of  miracles  ;  to  another  prophecy ;  to  another  discern 
ing  of  spirits ;  to  another  divers  kinds  of  tongues ;  to 
another  the  interpretation  of  tongues;  but  all  these 
worketh  that  one  and  the  selfsame  Spirit,  dividing  to 
every  man  severally  as  he  will." 

Also,  says  St.  Paul,  "He  that  is  joined  unto  the 
Lord  is  one  spirit " ;  and  so,  necessarily,  he  is  become 
a  man  of  infinite  and  innumerable  possibilities  for 
this  world  or  the  next,  being  united  with  the  fountain- 
head  of  all  goodness  and  truth  and  power,  even  though 
for  the  present  it  be  only  by  a  channel  coming  down 
from  above,  and  along  the  far-away  course  of  which 


134  THE   SPIRIT   AND 

angel  calls  to  angel,  up  the  heights  of  heaven.  By 
the  Spirit  of  God,  all  men  are  not  affected  exactly 
alike,  because  with  it  men  are  still  men,  and  of  their 
respective  nationalities,  generations,  and  individual 
ities.  Samson  was  a  man  of  rude  strength,  and  in  a 
rude  age,  and  with  Philistines  to  think  of.  "  And  be 
hold  a  young  lion  roared  against  him.  And  the  Spirit 
of  the  Lord  came  mightily  upon  him,  and  he  rent  him, 
as  he  would  have  rent  a  kid,  and  he  had  nothing  in 
his  hand."  But  Paul  in  Samson's  place,  probably, 
could  never  have  done  the  same  thing,  or  have  been  so 
strengthened  perhaps,  any  more  than  the  hand  of 
Samson  wrould  have  availed  for  Paul's  epistles.  And 
so  differently  indeed,  by  the  same  Spirit,  was  Paul  af 
fected  from  Samson,  that  he  wrote,  "  When  I  am  weak, 
then  am  I  strong." 

And  Gideon,  —  "The  angel  of  the  Lord  appeared 
unto  him,  and  said  unto  him,  The  Lord  is  with  thee, 
thou  mighty  man  of  valor."  And  how  was  the  Lord 
with  him  ?  It  was  through  the  channel  of  the  valiant 
man's  valor.  For  "  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  came  upon 
Gideon,"  and  it  blew  through  his  trumpet,  and  it 
clenched  for  him  his  right  hand  upon  his  sword ;  and 
that  sword  \vas  "  the  sword  of  the  Lord  and  of  Gideon." 
Azariah  and  Zechariah  being  prophets,  the  Spirit  of 
God  with  them  became  messages,  beginning  with 
"  Thus  saith  the  Lord."  Says  David,  "  The  Spirit  of 
the  Lord  spake  by  me " ;  and  the  historian  adds, 
"  Sweet  psalmist  of  Israel."  And  his  psalms  are  the 
psalms  of  the  Spirit  and  of  David.  And  now  how 
was  it  with  Simeon  of  Jerusalem,  when  "the  Holy 
Ghost  was  upon  him  "  ?  It  was  according  to  his  con- 


THE  PROPHETS  THEREOF.  135 

dition,  which  was  that  of  a  devout  old  man,  hopeful 
and  expectant,  at  a  time  of  extremity,  because  of  what 
his  nation  was  historically.  "And  it  was  revealed 
unto  him  by  the  Holy  Ghost  that  he  should  not  see 
death  before  he  had  seen  the  Lord's  Christ.  And  he 
came  by  the  Spirit  into  the  temple,  and  when  the 
parents  brought  in  the  child  Jesus,  to  do  for  him 
after  the  custom  of  the  law,  then  took  he  him  up  in 
his  arms,  and  blessed  God,  and  said,  Lord,  now  lettest 
thou  thy  servant  depart  in  peace,  according  to  thy 
word :  for  mine  eyes  have  seen  thy  salvation." 

The  protomartyr  Stephen  probably  knew  of  the 
council,  as  to  taking  no  thought  beforehand  for  magis 
trates,  for  what  he  should  say.  And  how  was  it  with 
him,  "full  of  faith  and  power,"  when  he  was  con 
fronted  by  enemies  ?  "  They  were  not  able  to  resist 
the  wisdom  and  the  spirit  by  which  he  spake."  And 
more  than  that,  "all  that  sat  in  the  council  looking 
steadfastly  on  him,  saw  his  face  as  it  had  been  the 
face  of  an  angel."  Altogether  different  from  that  of 
any  of  the  personages  before  mentioned  was  the  ex 
perience  of  the  Spirit  by  St.  John  the  Divine :  and 
very  widely  different  it  certainly  was  from  what  Gid 
eon  or  Samson  knew  of.  Says  John  of  himself,  being 
in  Patmos,  long  enough  after  the  death  of  his  Lord, 
to  date  by  the  Lord's  Day,  and  with  a  mind  in  all 
probability  anxious  about  the  future  of  the  church, 
"  I  was  in  the  Spirit  on  the  Lord's  day,  and  heard  be 
hind  me  a  great  voice  as  of  a  trumpet,  saying,  I  am 
Alpha  and  Omega,  the  first  and  the  last :  and  what 
thou  seest  write  in  a  book." 

Before  one  can  estimate  fairly  the  significance  of  a 


136  THE   SPIRIT   AND 

miracle,  he  must  know  how  the  worker  of  the  mira 
cles  was  estimated.  Commonly  every  prophet  is  sup 
posed  to  have  been  "  a  man  of  God  "  even  through  the 
name  of  prophet  merely;  and  every  word  which  he 
may  have  uttered,  it  is  often  supposed,  must  have 
been  holy.  And  yet  there  is  an  account,  under  the 
reign  of  Jeroboam,  of  the  misdeed  and  capital  punish 
ment  of  "  the  man  of  God,  who  was  disobedient  unto 
the  word  of  the  Lord." 

The  history  of  King  Saul  is  very  instructive  as  to 
the  faculty  of  prophecy  in  connection  with  character. 
After  he  had  been  anointed  by  the  prophet  Samuel, 
and  just  as  had  been  predicted  for  him,  "  Behold,  a 
company  of  prophets  met  him;  and  the  Spirit  of 
God  came  upon  him,  and  he  prophesied  among  them." 
Awhile  after  that,  because  of  an  atrocious  proposal  of 
the  Ammonites,  "  the  Spirit  of  God  came  upon  Saul, 
when  he  heard  those  tidings,  and  his  anger  was  kin 
dled  greatly."  After  this,  there  are  accounts  of  the 
untoward  ways  of  Saul:  and  then  it  is  to  be  read 
that  "  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  departed  from  Saul,  and 
an  evil  spirit  from  the  Lord  troubled  him."  Soon 
after  this  "  the  evil  spirit  from  God  came  upon  Saul, 
and  he  prophesied  in  the  midst  of  the  house " ;  and 
directly  afterwards  "Saul  was  afraid  of  David,  be 
cause  the  Lord  was  with  him,  and  was  departed  from 
Saul."  And  then  a  little  later,  'because  of  the  Spirit 
of  God,  which  mastered  all  his  messengers,  and  made 
them  prophesy,  as  they  approached  Samuel,  instead  of 
discharging  their  errand,  himself,  "  he  went  thither  to 
Naioth  in  Ramah :  and  the  Spirit  of  God  was  upon 
him  also,  and  he  went  on  and  prophesied  until  he 


THE  PROPHETS  THEREOF.          137 

came  to  Naioth  in  Ramah.  And  he  stripped  off  his 
clothes  also,  and  prophesied  before  Samuel  in  like 
manner,  and  lay  down  naked  all  that  day  and  all  that 
night.  Wherefore  they  say,  Is  Saul  also  among  the 
prophets  ? "  According  to  this  history,  then,  Saul 
prophesied  at  one  time  from  the  Spirit  of  God,  and 
at  another  time  from  an  evil  spirit,  and  then  again 
from  the  Spirit  of  God.  With  Saul,  then,  the  faculty 
of  prophecy  was  independent  of  its  use ;  just  as  po 
etry  may  sing  to  the  glory  of  God,  or  may  be  a  ribald 
jester  in  the  household  of  Satan. 

There  is  a  curious  history  in  the  thirteenth  chapter 
of  the  First  Book  of  the  Kings.  A  prophet  had  been 
on  a  wonderful  errand  to  Bethel,  and  by  the  word  of  the 
Lord,  had  been  ordered  not  to  eat  or  drink  there.  But 
he  was  accosted  by  an  old  prophet,  who  "  said  unto 
him,  I  am  a  prophet  also  as  thou  art :  and  an  angel 
spake  unto  me,  by  the  word  of  the  Lord,  saying,  Bring 
him  back  with  thee  unto  thine  house,  that  he  may  eat 
bread  and  drink  water.  But  he  lied  unto  him.  So  he 
went  back  with  him,  and  did  eat  bread  in  his  house, 
and  drank  water.  And  it  came  to  pass,  as  they  sat  at 
the  table,  that  the  word  of  the  Lord  came  unto  the 
prophet  that  brought  him  back.  And  he  cried  unto 
the  man  of  God  that  came  from  Judah,  saying,  Thus 
saith  the  Lord,  Forasmuch  as  thou  hast  disobeyed  the 
mouth  of  the  Lord,  and  hast  not  kept  the  command 
ments  which  the  Lord  thy  God  commanded  thee,  but 
earnest  back,  and  hast  eaten  bread  and  drunk  water  in 
the  place  of  the  which  the  Lord  did  say  to  thee,  Eat  no 
bread  and  drink  no  water ;  thy  carcass  shall  not  come 
unto  the  sepulchre  of  thy  fathers."  Here  a  man 


138  THE   SPIRIT   AND 

known  as  an  old  prophet,  immediately  after  hearing  of 
a  series  of  striking  miracles,  lies  fearfully  in  pretend 
ing  a  message  from  an  angel,  by  the  word  of  the  Lord. 
And  yet  quickly  afterwards  to  that  same  old  prophet 
"  the  word  of  the  Lord  came  "  with  a  prophecy  against 
the  prophet  who  had  been  deluded  by  him,  and  which 
was  almost  instantly  fulfilled. 

Moses  and  Aaron  and  Miriam  were  brothers  and 
sister,  and  had  been  witnesses  together  of  great  mira 
cles  in  Egypt,  at  the  Eed  Sea,  at  Mount  Sinai,  and  at 
Taberah.  Yet  Miriam  and  Aaron  spake  against  Moses  : 
and  they  said,  "  Hath  the  Lord  indeed  spoken  only  by 
Moses  ?  hath  he  not  spoken  also  by  us  ?  And  the 
Lord  heard  it."  And  although  she  was  a  prophetess, 
and  even  perhaps  all  the  more  readily,  because  of  that 
psychical  channel  or  condition  through  which  she  was 
capable  of  being  made  prophetic,  she  found  induced  on 
her  suddenly  a  miraculous  leprosy.  And  'of  Moses  him 
self,  there  is  to  be  read  what  is  very  striking.  He  had 
gone  up  with  miraculous  attendance,  and  at  the  call 
of  the  Lord,  on  to  Mount  Sinai,  where  he  remained 
forty  days.  And  the  Lord  "gave  unto  Moses,  when  he 
had  made  an  end  of  communing  with  him  upon  Mount 
Sinai,  two  tables  of  testimony,  tables  of  stone,  written 
with  the  finger  of  God.  And  when  the  people  saw 
that  Moses  delayed  to  come  down  out  of  the  Mount, 
the  people  gathered  themselves  together  unto  Aaron, 
and  said  unto  him,  Up,  make  us  gods,  which  shall  go 
before  us ;  for  as  for  this  Moses,  the  man  that  brought 
us  up  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  we  wot  not  what  is 
become  of  him."  Whereupon  ensued  bestial  idolatry, 
of  a  piece  with  what  they  had  known  in  Egypt.  "And 


THE  PROPHETS  THEREOF.  139 

it  came  to  pass,  as  soon  as  he  came  nigh  unto  the  camp, 
that  he  saw  the  calf,  and  the  dancing :  and  Moses'  an 
ger  waxed  hot,  and  he  cast  the  tables  out  of  his  hands, 
and  brake  them  beneath  the  Mount."  It  was  in  holy 
indignation  that  this  was  done,  no  doubt,  but  still  it 
was,  as  it  is  written,  in  anger. 

David  was  a  prophet,  but  yet  there  was  a  terrible 
occasion,  on  which  another  prophet,  Nathan,  was  sent 
to  him  to  say,  "  Thou  art  the  man."  Peter  is  called  at 
Borne  the  Prince  of  the  apostles,  but  yet,  it  was  he 
who  denied  three  times  over  that  ever  he  had  known 
his  Lord.  As  St.  Jerome  remarks,  miracles  were 
wrought  by  Judas  the  apostle,  even  when  he  had  in 
him  the  mind  of  a  traitor.  And  even  of  that  high- 
priest  Caiaphas,  who  was  accessory  to  the  crucifixion 
of  Jesus,  it  is  written  that  just  before  that  event,  be 
ing  in  council,  he  pronounced  an  opinion.  "And  this 
spake  he  not  of  himself:  but  being  high-priest  that 
year,  he  prophesied  that  Jesus  should  die  for  that  na 
tion." 

Not  only  do  miracles  not  vouch  for  character ;  but 
even  the  very  agents  of  miracles  could  quarrel  among 
themselves,  and  be  doubtful  about  doctrine.  In  his 
epistle  to  the  Galatians,  Paul  writes,  "  He  that  wrought 
effectually  in  Peter  to  the  apostlesliip  of  the  circum 
cision,  the  same  was  mighty  in  me  toward  the  Gen 
tiles."  And  then  because  of  the  time-serving  of  Peter, 
Paul  says,  "  When  Peter  was  come  to  Antioch,  I  with 
stood  him  to  the  face,  because  he  was  to  be  blamed." 
On  one  occasion  Barnabas  and  Saul,  "  being  sent  forth 
by  the  Holy  Ghost,"  journeyed  together.  And  Barna 
bas  saw  great  miracles  wrought  through  Paul,  at 


140  THE   SPIRIT   AND 

Paphos  and  at  Lystra ;  but  for  all  that,  after  a  little 
while,  "  the  contention  was  so  sharp  between  them 
that  they  departed  asunder  one  from  the  other."  That 
miracles  were  wrought  through  Paul,  did  not  make 
Barnabas  think  that  Paul  was  a  better  judge  than 
himself  in  common  things.  Nor  apparently  would  he 
have  yielded  to  Paul,  if  even  he  had  known  already 
what  happened  soon  afterwards.  "  And  God  wrought 
special  miracles  by  the  hands  of  Paul :  so  that  from 
his  body  were  brought  unto  the  sick  handkerchiefs  or 
aprons,  and  the  diseases  departed  from  them,  and  the 
evil  spirits  went  out  of  them." 

And  indeed  it  is  one  thing  for  a  man  to  serve  as  a 
channel  for  the  Holy  Ghost ;  and  it  is  a  very  different 
thing  indeed,  for  that  man  himself  to  appropriate  that 
Spirit  for  his  own  enlightenment  and  sanctincation. 
St.  Paul  himself  had  a  very  vivid  sense  of  this.  And 
on  this  very  point,  writing  to  the  Corinthians  fourteen 
years  after  his  marvellous  experience,  he  says,  "  I  knew 
such  a  man  (whether  in  the  body,  or  out  of  the  body, 
I  cannot  tell :  God  knoweth)  how  that  he  was  caught 
up  into  Paradise,  and  heard  unspeakable  words,  which 
it  is  not  lawful  for  a  man  to  utter.  Of  such  an  one 
will  I  glory :  yet  of  myself  I  will  not  glory,  but  in 
mine  infirmities."  He  could  glory  in  the  miracle  but 
only  as  though  he  himself  had  had  nothing  whatever 
to  do  with  it.  A  wonderful  man  !  The  apostle,  too,  of 
everything  in  the  Church  which  is  not  Jewish  !  The 
great  apostle  of  the  Gentiles !  But  inwardly  also  he 
was  great.  And  the  greater  the  insight  has  been, 
which  the  greatest  men  have  attained  to,  the  more 
wonderfully  plain  has  it  become  to  them,  that  Paul 


THE  PROPHETS  THEREOF.          141 

was  a  channel  for  the  Holy  Spirit,  not  merely  with  his 
lips  and  the  surface  of  his  nature,  but  through  that 
great  heart  of  his,  which  for  that  purpose  had  ripened, 
as  the  tenantless  earth  did  in  the  broad  light  of  the 
sun,  by  inward  heat  and  convulsions  from  mysterious 
powers,  and  by  processes  which  were  at  once  purifying 
and  enriching,  and  also  terrible. 

Paul  might  have  been  able  to  withstand  harmlessly 
the  bite  of  a  deadly  viper,  because  of  the  power  which 
was  in  him ;  he  might  have  been  once  and  again  taken 
for  a  god  by  both  Greeks  and  barbarians ;  he  might  at 
one  time,  by  merely  sending  his  handkerchief  have 
cured  disease,  or  have  chased  away  evil  spirits ;  or  he 
might  have  been  able  to  say  to  the  Corinthians,  "  I 
thank  my  God,  I  speak  with  tongues  more  than  ye 
all."  But  it  was  because  of  what  was  more  than  all 
that,  because  of  his  wonderful  self-knowledge,  because 
of  his  philosophy,  because  of  the  quickening  which  he 
had  had  from  the  Holy  Spirit,  that  he  could  also  say 
to  the  Corinthians,  "  I  keep  under  my  body,  and  bring 
it  into  subjection :  lest  that  by  any  means,  when  I 
have  preached  to  others,  I  myself  should  be  a  cast 
away." 

What  an  autobiography  Paul  might  have  written ! 
It  would  seem  as  though  it  might  be  like  a  key  to  end 
less  mysteries,  if  only  we  could  know  the  process  of 
his  feeling  during  his  time  of  isolation  in  Arabia. 
"When  it  pleased  God,  who  separated  me  from  my 
mother's  womb,  and  called  me  by  his  grace,  to  reveal 
his  Son  in  me,  that  I  might  preach  him  among  the 
heathen  ;  immediately  I  conferred  not  with  flesh  and 
blood ;  neither  went  I  up  to  Jerusalem  to  them  which 


142  THE   SPIRIT   AND 

were  apostles  before  me,  but  I  went  into  Arabia."  Af 
ter  that  wondrous  conversion  of  his,  and  he  being  the 
man  he  was,  what  was  it  which  went  on  with  him  and 
in  him,  during  that  seclusion  in  Arabia,  before  he  re 
turned  again  to  Damascus,  whence,  after  three  years, 
he  went  up  to  Jerusalem  to  see  Peter  ?  Perhaps 
really  he  never  could  have  reduced  it  into  words,  any 
more  than  he  was  able  to  tell  what  it  was  that  he  saw 
when  he  was  "  caught  up  to  the  third  heaven."  For, 
indeed,  very  often,  by  persons  of  marked  experience, 
it  has  been  a  confession,  that  withinside  the  surface, 
which  had  been  witnessed  by  the  public,  and  within- 
side  still  of  what  they  themselves  could  tell  of,  there 
was  a  dim  sense  of  what  they  had  been  drawn  through, 
which  it  was  not  possible  for  them  to  explain,  —  as 
being  a  something  concerned  with  powers  outside  of 
the  material  world,  and  for  which,  as  to  the  inter 
course,  the  words  of  mortals  are  nothing. 

And  now,  from  this  chapter  what  is  the  inference  ? 
For  fairly  stating  it,  some  accompanying  explanations 
would  be  necessary  ;  but,  in  a  general  way,  it  may  be 
said  to  be  this :  The  Spirit  of  God  would  keep  itself 
for  recognition,  as  distinct  as  is  possible,  and  as  free 
as  possible  from  confusion  with  the  human  agencies, 
through  which  it  signifies  itself.  And,  indeed,  if  it 
were  manifested  only  through  saints,  it  would  be 
thought  to  be  an  attribute  of  human  goodness  ; 
whereas,  really,  it  is  a  manifestation,  more  or  less 
direct,  and  more  or  less  imperfect,  because  of  human 
infirmities,  —  it  is  a  manifestation  of  the  Spirit  of  the 
universe,  and  of  the  God,  who  is  that  Spirit.  And 
thus  it  is,  —  and  no  thanks  to  Jonah  or  any  man  of 


THE  PROPHETS  THEREOF.  143 

his  kind,  —  thus  it  is,  that  the  Spirit  of  God,  for  its 
purposes,  can  make  use  of  an  unwilling  man,  and  an 
unmerciful  man,  like  the  prophet  Jonah. 

But,  indeed,  every  gift  or  grace  of  any  magnitude, 
is  almost  instinctively  held  by  the  heart,  like  treasure 
in  an  earthen  vessel.  And  with  the  least  glimmer  of 
insight,  a  man  of  any  greatness  sees  at  once,  that  the 
best  part  of  himself  is  not  himself  at  all,  but  what  is 
confided  to  him,  like  "treasure  in  earthen  vessels." 
Those  words  of  St.  Paul,  as  to  his  experience,  have 
been  repeated  age  after  age,  by  the  greatest  men, 
sometimes  in  triumph,  and  sometimes  in  tears;  by 
scholars  as  to  their  faculty,  by  poets  as  to  their  genius, 
and  by  every  saint  as  to  his  holiness.  Those  words 
of  Paul  are  what  John  would  have  joined  in,  and 
what  Peter  would  have  affirmed  ;  they  are  what  David 
would  have  gloried  in,  for  singing  like  a  psalm ;  and 
also  of  all  "  holy  apostles  and  prophets  "  they  are  the 
solemn  testimony  to  the  world,  and  before  Heaven, 
—  "  But  we  have  this  treasure  in  earthen  vessels,  that 
the  excellency  of  the  power  may  be  of  God,  and  not 
of  us." 


ANTI-SUPEKNATURAL  MISUNDEKSTAND- 
INGS. 

NOE  is  it  the  Bible  only  which  is  wronged  by  the 
anti-supernaturalism  of  the  reader,  but  other 
ancient  writings  also  suffer  from  the  same  cause.  And 
from  the  same  cause  also  there  is  sometimes  a  great 
misapprehension  of  certain  eras  of  history.  There  are 
some  words,  frequently  quoted  from  a  work  by  Cicero, 
which  simply  are  a  sentiment  which  he  puts  into  the 
mouth  of  a  man  in  an  imaginary  conversation.  But  it 
is  quoted  as  though  it  were  his  own  deliberate  opinion ; 
and  it  touches  heathenism  only  on  one  point,  which 
by  its  nature  was  always  accounted  as  being  variable ; 
and  yet  it  is  often  adduced  to  show  that  Cicero  was 
estranged  from  heathenism  with  his  whole  mind,  and 
that  also  every  educated  person  was  ready  to  abandon 
heathenism,  before  the  birth  of  Christ.  But  a  Eoman 
might  say  all  that  Cicero  said  on  the  nature  of  the 
gods,  and  yet  continue  to  be  especially  heathenish,  and 
might  have  a  soul  liable,  any  day,  to  flash  up  and  fill 
out  all  the  old  creed  with  credence.  And  actually, 
on  the  death  of  his  daughter,  Cicero  built  a  temple, 
which  he  dedicated  to  her  ghost. 

It  is  quite  true,  that  the  worship  of  Jupiter  Capito- 
linus  declined  very  largely  during  the  first  century  of 
the  present  era.  Was  it,  however,  because  Pome  had 
become  less  earnestly  idolatrous  ?  No ;  not  in  the 


ANTI-SUPERNATURAL   MISUNDERSTANDINGS.         145 

least.  It  was  because  Rome  had  become  more  idola 
trous  than  when  it  was  founded,  and  because  the 
idolatries  of  all  nations  had  been  brought  and  assem 
bled  there.  And  this  is  certain  by  legislation  on  the 
subject;  for  age  after  age,  the  Senate  issued  injunc 
tions  and  complaints  as  to  the  manner  in  which  the 
old  gods  of  the  country  were  being  neglected,  for  the 
more  fashionable  deities  and  services  of  foreign  origin. 
It  is  not  true,  that  Christianity  had  its  way  in  the 
world  largely  facilitated  by  the  decline  of  heathenism. 
It  is  an  anti-Christian  position  which  is  never  chal 
lenged,  but  yet  it  is  not  tenable.  Heathenism  did  not 
die  of  public  indifference,  nor  of  indifference  at  all. 
It  never  was  more  thoroughly  believed  than  it  was  by 
its  last  professors.  And  as  to  favors  granted  him  by 
his  gods,  there  never  was  a  man  more  thoroughly  per 
suaded  about  anything  than  the  Emperor  Julian  was 
about  that.  But  that  he  could  have  been  so  persuaded 
is  what  is  almost  impossible  for  a  scholar  to  think,  be 
cause  of  that  general  anti-supernaturalism,  which  every 
body  suffers  from,  like  an  influenza.  Even  a  writer 
like  the  German  Tholuck  can  instance  Pausanias'as 
being  sceptical  about  his  religion.  But  now  that 
writer  was  of  a  certain  school  in  Pagan  theology  ;  but 
he  was  not,  therefore,  the  less  thoroughly  hearty  in  his 
Paganism,  if  that  may  be  called  so,  which  got  the 
name  somewhat  later  than  his  time.  To  suppose  that 
he  doubted  about  Hellenism,  for  any  reason  contained 
in  his  book,  is  much  about  the  same  thing  as  though, 
by  way  of  an  incongruous  comparison,  yet  apt  enough 
for  the  point,  one  should  doubt  the  Christianity  of 
Izaak  Walton,  because  of  his  friendship  with  Bishop  Ken. 
7  j 


146         ANTI-SUPERNATURAL  MISUNDERSTANDINGS. 

Pausanias,  who  writes  of  the  various  occasions  on 
which  he  was  warned  by  visions  or  dreams  sent  from 
the  gods,  and  of  his  sacred  obedience  accordingly  ;  who 
tried,  too,  some  of  the  marvels  connected  with  Pagan 
ism,  and  who  testifies  about  them  as  being  real ;  and 
who,  besides,  had  a  most  affectionate  and  tender  inter 
est  in  all  the  antiquities  of  Paganism  in  Greece,  — 
Pausanias,  a  doubter,  and,  in  the  second  century  of  the 
Christian  era,  an  example  of  failing  faith  in  his  re 
ligion  !  It  might  as  well  be  said  that  the  Maccabees 
were  doubtful  about  Moses,  or  that  Alban  Butler,  in 
the  "  Lives  of  the  Saints,"  was  not  quite  sure  about 
the  Church.  And  there  have  been  persons  who  have 
so  written  about  Plato,  as  though  it  might  have  seemed 
evident  that,  to  their  apprehension,  there  was  no  de- 
monology  of  any  kind  involved  in  his  writings.  How 
has  it  happened  that  of  what  Plato  wrote  there  are 
things  which  some  of  his  most  fervent  disciples  would 
seem  never  to  have  noticed  ?  This  case  may  be  passed 
over  to  Pausanias.  And  how  has  it  been  that  Pausa 
nias  could  ever  have  been  accounted  an  instance  of 
declining  faith  in  Hellenism  ?  For  the  whole  tone  of 
his  book  is  that  of  a  fervent,  unquestioning  believer. 
And  there  are  perhaps  ten  narratives  of  what  he  be 
lieved  were  his  own  experiences  of  it,  preternaturally. 
How,  then,  is  it  that  he  should  ever  have  been  ac 
counted  a  doubter,  or  even  a  man  with  misgivings  as 
to  his  Pagan  religion  ?  It  could  only  have  been  from 
prejudice,  and  from  thinking  him,  perhaps,  a  man  too 
'wise  to  mean  exactly  what  he  wrote.  Or  rather,  the 
writer  who  first  published  that  impression  about  him 
must  have  been  a  man  whose  eye,  by  anti-supernatural 


ANTI-SUPERNATURAL   MISUNDERSTANDINGS.         147 

habit  in  reading,  slurred  over  what  really  Pausanias 
had  to  say  about  himself. 

Paganism  growing  effete  as  a  power,  and  thereby 
yielding  the  more  readily  to  the  preaching  of  Chris 
tianity  !  It  is  what  never  happened.  That  anti-Chris 
tian  position  has  been  acquiesced  in  by  some  Christian 
divines,  from  a  mistaken  notion  as  to  the  law  of  pro 
gress,  by  which  it  has  been  fancied  that,  as  one  religion 
was  dying  out,  it  was  of  the  mercy  of  God  that  there 
should  be,  under  Providence,  another  and  better  re 
ligion  to  succeed  it.  The  notion  of  those  divines  was 
true ;  but  it  was  not  the  whole  truth,  even  on  their 
plane  of  thought.  Heathenism  as  a  social  power, 
yielding  easily  to  the  soft  coming  of  Christianity,  —  is 
that,  or  anything  like  it,  corroborated  by  the  history  of 
the  Colosseum  ?  No  :«  and  there  is  not  a  brick  there, 
nor  a  stone,  nor  scarcely  a  grain  of  dust,  but,  like  blood 
crying  from  the  ground,  protests  in  every  intelligent 
ear  against  Gibbon,  the  historian,  for  what  he  has  said. 
And  how  is  it  about  the  other  monuments  of  ancient 
Home,  as  connected  with  that  idolatry  which  was  the 
soul  of  it  ?  They  nearly  all  of  them  witness,  in  one 
way  or  another,  to  the  strength  of  that  heathenism 
which  had  to  yield  to  the  "  foolishness  of  preaching." 
The  circus  of  Maxentius  was  dedicated,  and  the  temple 
of  Romulus,  the  son  of  Maxentius,  was  built  only  in 
the  very  last  year  of  heathenism,  the  very  year  before 
Constantine  entered  Kome  as  a  Christian  emperor. 
And  the  grandest  monument  surviving  of  ancient 
Kome,  the  Pantheon,  was  but  a  fresh  building  at  the 
birth  of  Christ,  having  been  finished  and  inscribed 
less  than  thirty  years  before.  Of  nearly  all  the  tern- 


148         ANTI-SUPERNATURAL   MISUNDERSTANDINGS. 

pies  which  remain  in  Borne,  the  very  dates  attest  the 
strength  of  idolatry  there,  ages  after  Paul  had  looked 
on,  as  a  prisoner,  —  the  temple  of  Kemus,  that  of 
Ceres  and  Proserpine,  that  of  Vesta,  that  of  Antoninus 
Pius,  that  of  Venus  and  Rome,  built  by  Hadrian,  and 
that  of  Minerva  Medica,  of  the  age  of  Diocletian. 
And  all  round  the  Forum,  by  the  dates  at  which  they 
were  built,  all  the  temples  attest  that  heathenism  was 
never  stronger  socially  than  whilst  Christianity  was 
preaching  against  it,  —  the  temple  of  Concord  and  that 
of  Vespasian,  —  the  temple  of  Saturn,  between  the 
Forum  and  the  Capitol,  and  the  temple  of  Antoninus 
and  Faustina,  with  its  startling  inscription,  alongside 
of  the  Via  Sacra.  And  if  more  testimony  were  needed, 
it  might  be  reasoned  out  from  the  arch  of  Constantine, 
erected  in  the  fourth  century  of  our  era,  and  from  that 
arch  of  Titus,  in  the  first  century,  which  bears  in 
wrought  into  it,  what  is  almost  a  cry  from  the  dead,  in 
the  marble  form  of  Simon  the  son  of  Gorias,  as  he  was 
dragged  triumphantly  into  Eome,  after  the  capture  of 
Jerusalem,  along  with  the  spoils  of  the  temple,  sculp 
tured  also  on  the  arch  in  colored  marbles,  —  the  silver 
trumpets,  and  the  table  for  the  shew-bread,  and  also 
the  seven-branched  candlestick.  The  history  of  Chris 
tianity  in  struggle  with  Paganism  has  not  been  written 
yet ;  nor  can  it  be  written,  but  under  another  philos 
ophy  of  religion  than  what  has  prevailed  since  the 
archives  of  the  pastjhave  begun  to  be  generally  acces 
sible.  And  the  persons  through  whom,  by  one  trial 
after  another,  it  shall  ultimately  have  been  accom 
plished,  will  have  testified  to  a  very  different  struggle 
from  what  Gibbon  ever  thought  that  he  was  writing 


ANTI-SUPERNATUKAL   MISUNDERSTANDINGS.         149 

about,  and  will  have  attested  the  words  of  St.  Paul, 
as  having  been  true  :  "  For  we  wrestle  not  against 
flesh  and  blood,  but  against  principalities,  against  pow 
ers,  against  the  rulers  of  the  darkness  of  this  world, 
against  spiritual  wickedness  in  high  places." 

How  wonderful  is  that  text  in  Isaiah,  new  once,  but 
now  again  almost  as  fresh  for  meaning  as  it  ever  was : 
"  The  vision  of  all  is  become  unto  you  as  the  words  of 
a  book  that  is  sealed,  which  men  deliver  to  one  that  is 
learned,  saying,  Eead  this,  I  pray  thee ;  and  he  saith, 
I  cannot ;  for  it  is  sealed  :  and  the  book  is  delivered  to 
him  that  is  not  learned,  saying,  Bead  this,  I  pray  thee : 
and  he  saith,  I  am  not  learned."  A  general  blindness 
this,  and  perhaps  without  the  fault  specially  of  any 
individuals.  And  what  came  from  Isaiah  in  proph 
ecy  as  to  his  time  and  nation  is  what  in  modern  times 
people  have  been  undergoing,  and  especially  in  Prot 
estant  countries.  Has  this  been  for  any  special  fault 
of  theirs ;  or  is  it  to  be  counted  for  a  disgrace  ?  By 
no  means.  It  has  even  become  a  proverb :  "  I  would 
rather  be  wrong  with  Plato  than  right  with  any  one 
else."  And  the  writer  hereof  would  rather  be  wrong 
with  some  anti-supernaturalists  than  be  right  with 
some  good  people  whom  he  has  known  at  Koine.  On 
a  choice  between  poets  and  merchants  of  the  same 
honesty,  it  would  be  beyond  all  comparison  better  that 
this  world  should  be  managed  by  men  of  business  than 
by  men  of  "  vision  and  faculty  divine."  And  if  there 
is  to  be  advance  in  the  world,  as  the  world  is,  it  can 
only  be  by  steps,  for  every  one  of  which  really  there 
must  be  some  drawback.  But  the  recognition  of  that 
drawback  is  a  large  part  of  philosophy  at  any  time. 


150         ANTI-SUPERNATURAL   MISUNDERSTANDINGS. 

And  in  it  indeed  is  involved  that  philosophy  of  human 
nature,  never  distinctly  recognized  but  under  Christ, 
by  which  it  is  plain  that  human  creatures  are  meant  to 
be  mutually  helpful,  and  "  members  of  one  another." 
In  a  good  spirit,  the  man  who  contradicts  me  is  one 
side  of  my  mind.  And  surely  and  reasonably,  there 
must  always  be  a  private  account  to  be  balanced,  if 
only  it  could  be  done  by  any  happy  mediation,  be 
tween  the  man  of  introspection  and  old  books,  and  the 
man  of  outlook  by  the  telescope  and  the  chemical  retort. 
For  neither  of  them,  by  his  speciality,  is  likely,  as  it 
would  seem,  to  be  right  on  all  points  absolutely.  And 
even,  perhaps,  the  best  application  of  a  spiritual  phi 
losophy  to  human  wants  may  be  expected  from  men 
who  have  known  to  the  uttermost,  by  experience,  what 
Rationalism  can  do. 

At  this  point,  especially,  does  the  writer  hereof  re 
member  a  very  dear  life-long  friend,  a  native  of  New 
York,  though  a  British  subject,  who  has  never  been 
long  absent  from  his  thought  while  these  papers  have 
been  in  preparation.  At  one  time  it  was  a  sore  trouble 
to  him,  that  he  was  unable  wholly  to  believe  in  the 
miracles  of  the  Scriptures ;  and  all  the  while  his 
doubts  about  them  were  more  believing  than  the 
certainties  of  some  other  persons.  But  he  lived  to 
publish,  a  little  before  his  sudden  death,  a  work  on 
"  Unconscious  Prophecies,  and  their  Fulfilment."  The 
miraculousness  of  human  nature,  as  connected  with  a 
world  of  spirits,  and  the  prophetic  susceptibility  of  hu 
man  nature, — of  these  things  he  had  become  persuaded 
by  wide  observation  and  wise  induction.  And  by 
the  force  simply  of  wide  notice  and  patient  thought, 


ANTI- SUPERNATURAL   MISUNDERSTANDINGS.         151 

he  had  attained  to  a  better  sense  of  prophecy  than  he 
could  ever  have  got  from  any  theological  treatise,  of  the 
last  hundred  years.  The  public  was  indebted  to  him 
without  ever  having  known  of  him.  Somewhat  of  a 
sufferer,  but  cheerful,  hopeful,  and  almost  joyous  as  to 
his  tone  of  life,  and  with  an  easy,  infinite  confidence 
in  God,  which  was  a  veritable  gift  of  faith,  he  was  a 
blessing  simply  to  know  of.  He  was  always  among 
advanced  thinkers  on  all  subjects.  And  that  Arthur 
Lupton  believed  in  prophecy  may  be  accounted  a  sign 
of  the  times,  on  account  of  the  scientific  manner  in 
which  his  conviction  about  it  had  been  wrought  out. 
For  his  friends,  it  is  still  as  though  he  were  within  and 
above  their  horizon,  because  of  the  trail  of  light  which 
survives  in  the  sky,  and  which  he  left  behind  when  he 
vanished  like  a  shooting-star.  And,  as  Jeremy  Taylor 
might  have  said,  there  is  one  who  could  wish,  at  the 
end  of  the  great  harvest,  that  his  soul  may  be  found  in 
the  same  bundle  of  life  with  the  soul  of  his  friend. 


THE  LAST  ECSTATIC. 

AND  now  let  the  line  of  remark  be  resumed,  as  to 
blindness  to  things  immediately  under  the  eye, 
but  of  which,  every  now  and  then,  somebody  unexpect 
edly  becomes  conscious.  Less  than  a  month  ago  there 
appeared  in  the  Times  newspaper,  of  London,  what  has 
already  been  republished  in  this  country,  an  account 
of  an  ecstatic  in  Belgiujn  :  — 

"  A  NEW  ECSTATIC.  —  The  Impartial  de  Soignies  devotes 
five  'columns  to  a  description  of  a  new  ecstatic  named 
Louise  Lateau.  It  appears  from  the  statement  of  the  Bel 
gian  journal  that  for  some  months  past  this  young  girl 
presents  every  Friday  the  phenomena  which  are  called  the 
stigmata  of  the  Passion.  She  has  on  her  hands,  feet,  and 
over  the  heart  sanguineous  blisters,  which  exude  abundant 
ly.  The  ordinary  functions  of  life  are  suspended.  The 
eyes  open,  and,  turned  obliquely  towards  heaven,  appear  to 
be  attentively  fixed  on  some  object.  The  pupils  are  di 
lated,  the  face  is  pale,  the  mouth  partially  opened,  and  the 
features  express  a  sentiment  of  admiration  mingled  with  a 
sweet  sorrow.  At  times  the  object  she  seems  to  contem 
plate  produces  a  painful  starting.  When  not  in  ecstasy, 
she  is  in  catalepsy.  At  three  o'clock  she  starts  up  all  at 
once  and  suddenly  flings  herself  on  the  flags,  without  the 
least  attempt  to  protect  her  face  with  her  hands  ;  yet  she 
receives  no  injury.  She  remains  for  an  hour  in  this  hori 
zontal  position,  her  arms  and  feet  crossed.  About  half  past 
four  o'clock  she  raises  herself  quickly,  without  any  assist- 


THE   LAST   ECSTATIC.  153 

ance,  her  arms  still  in  the  form  of  a  cross,  as  if  some  invis 
ible  power  had  placed  her  in  this  vertical  position.  She 
then  falls  on  her  knees,  next  sits  down,  and  in  about  ten 
minutes  the  body  is  subjected  to  a  kind  of  torsion,  and  the 
Ecstatic  of  Bois  d'Haine  —  for  so  she  is  called  —  throws 
herself  supine  on  the  ground.  Then  it  is  that  she  is  waked 
up  ;  but  to  accomplish  this,  the  persons  about  her  must  be 
long  to  the  Order  of  the  Passion." 

And  now  what  is  to  be  thought  of  this  account  ?  It 
is  an  easy  thing  for  blind  leaders  of  the  blind  to  jeer 
at  it,  and  to  get  honor  of  such  a  kind  as  their  followers 
have  to  give.  But  all  that  cannot  avail  long  in  an  era 
like  the  present,  in  which  news  and  opinions  are  ex 
changed  so  fast. 

Some  twenty-five  years  ago,  tales  went  through  the 
newspapers  in  England  as  to  a  young  Tyrolese  girl, 
who  was  an  ecstatic.  At  these  tales  many  Protestants 
thanked  God  that  they  were  not  superstitious  Catholics. 
But  at  that  time,  also,  the  Puseyite  movement  was 
gathering  strength.  A  letter  was  published  in  The 
Morning  Chronicle  by  the  Earl  of  Shrewsbury,  who 
had  visited  the  saintly  sufferer,  or  the  suffering  saint. 
The  letter  might  have  been  published  in  a  Catholic 
newspaper,  and  never  have  reached  a  Protestant.  For 
what  is  published  in  a  religious  newspaper  is  read  by 
its  subscribers  only ;  and  if  anything  extraordinary 
of  any  kind  happens  to  appear  in  such  a  paper,  it  is 
scarcely  regarded  as  credible,  even  though  written, 
printed,  published,  and  vouched  for  by  some  of  the 
best  men  in  the  world,  unless  they  should  happen  also 
to  go  to  the  same  church  as  the  reader.  The  letter, 
however,  of  the  Earl  of  Shrewsbury,  descriptive  of  the 


154  THE  LAST   ECSTATIC. 

Ecstatica  of  Caldaro,  was  published  in  the  chief  lib 
eral,  secular  newspaper  of  the  time  in  London.  By 
that  letter  there  were  a  few  persons,  who  were  made  to 
pause  with  wonder,  like  the  writer  hereof.  But  there 
were  still  more  people,  through  Puseyite  preparation, 
who  read  the  account  excited,  aghast,  and  wondering 
what  they  should  do  to  be  saved.  And  it  was  not 
without  assistance  from  that  letter  that  many  Pusey- 
ites  became  Catholics.  For  the  old  way  of  settling 
such  a  point,  as  was  involved  in  that  letter,  was  no 
longer  quite  sufficient,  although  it  was  very  nearly  so. 
But  there  were  Puseyites,  who  could  not  feel  that  a 
letter  like  the  earl's,  was  answered  by  two  or  three  good 
jokes  from  Oxford  Fellows,  or  by  a  running  fire  of 
laughter  all  over  the  country  from  comfortable  rectors, 
strong  in  their  legal  position  as  members  of  the  Estab 
lishment. 

And  now,  how  did  that  letter  of  the  earl's  act  ?  Let 
us  see  how  it  was  pointed.  This,  however,  can  be  done 
now  only  from  the  book  into  which  the  letter  grew,  by 
additional  accounts  of  other  ecstatics.  Let  it  be  re 
membered  that  the  letter  was  dated  from  circumstances 
much  the  same,  and  in  kind  exactly  the  same,  as  the 
phenomena  attendant  on  the  Belgian  ecstatic,  which 
have  just  been  described.  "Are  we  not  safer  in  be 
lieving  with  Maria  Mori  and  the  two  Domenicas,  and 
the  great  body  of  the  Christian  Church,  both  ancient 
and  modern,  than  in  pinning  our  faith  —  if  such  were 
possible  —  upon  the  dissenting  tenets  of  one  solitary 
fanciful  individual,  —  tenets  all  of  them  easily  proved  to 
be  erroneous  ? "  But  becoming  still  warmer  and  still 
more  personal  with  his  argument,  the  earl  says  :  "  Put- 


THE   LAST   ECSTATIC.  155 

ting  all  other  evidences  out  of  the  question,  can  Dr. 
Pusey  give  me  any  one  sign  and  wonder  in  defence  of 
his  doctrines,  equal  to  the  assurance  I  have  received  in 
favor  of  mine,  from  these  simple,  humble,  but  gifted 
souls  ? " 

But  now,  instead  of  succumbing  helplessly  to  any 
meaning,  which  anybody  may  please  to  put  upon  a 
prodigy,  it  would  seem  to  be  right  to  ask,  what  actual 
ly  the  meaning  of  the  prodigy  may  be.  Maria  Mori 
may  have  instanced  effects  resulting  from  intense  devo 
tion  of  a  certain  kind,  without  necessarily  having  been 
thereby  marked  out  as  a  favorite  of  heaven,  or  even  as 
an  example  to  be  patterned.  And  unless  for  persons 
predisposed  to  think  so,  really  the  state  of  these  Ital 
ian  ecstatics,  entranced  at  times,  but  bedridden,  and 
at  times  cataleptic,  clairvoyant  often,  but  very  weak, 
and  made  still  more  singular  as  to  their  condition  by 
those  strange  marks  on  the  body,  —  all  this  would  not 
necessarily  and  obviously  seem  to  mean  the  special 
favor  of  Heaven,  for  a  particular  mode  of  worship.  No 
doubt,  there  was  something  very  extraordinary  in  their 
cases.  But  that  the  meaning  of  those  extraordinary 
manifestations  bore  against  Dr.  Pusey  it  is  not  neces 
sary  to  suppose,  notwithstanding  that  some  of  his  fol 
lowers  did  think  so,  to  the  great  discomfort  of  the 
Church  of  England. 

In  view  of  his  book,  to  doubt  either  the  earl  or  the 
witnesses  whom  he  cites  as  to  what  was  seen,  is  what 
the  present  writer  would  not  think  of,  for  a  moment. 
Also,  he  would  think  it  to  be  a  great  good  if  certain 
other  people,  within  a  certain  sphere,  could  feel  as  he 
does.  For,  truly  it  is  not  for  everybody,  in  every  sphere, 


156  THE   LAST   ECSTATIC. 

to  get  good  from  everything.  And  for  all  persons,  out 
side  of  what  they  are  ready  for,  it  is  better  that  they 
should  flatly  deny  than  weakly  affect  to  believe. 
Though  yet  there  are  some  few  better  people  who, 
though  finite  by  nature,  do  yet  know  and  feel  them 
selves  to  be  children  of  the  Infinite,  and  who  therefore 
do  not  feel  bound  to  deny  and  denounce  everything, 
which  they  may  not  be  ready  to  understand,  at  any 
moment. 

Dr.  Pusey  must  have  felt  himself  sorely  pushed  by 
the  earl  at  that  time,  while  he  was  struggling  hard  to 
be  thought  a  Catholic,  when  he  found  himself  con 
trasted  for  the  worse  with  Domenica  Barbagli,  the 
ecstatic  of  Monte  San  Savino,  "  this  pre-sanctified 
spirit,  this  chosen  soul,  undoubtedly  favored  by  seraphic 
communings  with  her  God."  But  what  he  felt  has 
never  appeared,  nor  yet  the  way  by  which  he  avoided 
the  conclusion  on  to  which  the  earl  would  have  forced 
him.  But  on  his  followers  the  appeal  had  great  effect. 
And,  at  least,  the  remembrance  of  it  will  be  revived  by 
the  report  of  the  ecstatic  in  Belgium,  so  near  to  Eng 
land. 

Towards  the  end  of  his  book  the  earl,  a  very  candid 
writer,  says  that  his  attention  had  been  drawn  to  mes 
merism,  as  accounting  for  many  of  the  phenomena 
which  he  had  witnessed  in  the  ecstatics.  He  acknowl 
edges  the  pertinency  of  the  suggestion ;  but  he  demurs 
to  it  as  an  explanation,  for  several  reasons,  of  which 
the  first  is  the  best,  although  it  is  worthless.  And  that 
reason  which  the  earl  alleges,  is  simply  that  mesmerism 
is  not  known  in  the  Tyrol.  But  he  might  as  well  have 
said  that  electricity  and  thunder-storms  are  unknown 


THE   LAST   ECSTATIC.  157 

in  the  Tyrol,  because  the  names  of  Benjamin  Franklin 
and  Joseph  Priestley  had  never  been  heard  there,  and 
because,  perhaps,  an  electrifying  machine  had  never 
been  introduced  into  Caldaro  or  Capriana.  And  really 
all  which  the  earl  witnessed  in  those  ecstatics,  about 
whom  he  wrote,  except  as  to  the  stigmata,  are  things 
fairly  within  the  circle  of  mesmerism.  Though  very 
curious,  and  what  astound  millions  of  intelligent  per 
sons,  yet  they  are  some  such  effects  as  could  be  in 
duced  and  manifested  by  processes  which  are  called 
mesmeric.  For  mesmerism,  as  it  is  called,  is  by  thou 
sands  of  years  older  than  Mesmer,  good  man.  The  vital 
forces  of  which  he  availed  himself  are,  of  course,  as  old 
as  Adam  :  nor  was  he  the  first  person,  by  hundreds, 
perhaps,  to  systematize  as  to  observation  and  use  in  con 
nection  with  them.  And  when  mesmerism  was  sug 
gested  as  accounting  for  the  clairvoyance,  catalepsy, 
and  trance  of  the  ecstatics,  it  was  not  probably  meant 
that  there  were  persons  who  mesmerized  them  know 
ingly,  on  purpose,  and  by  art ;  but  that  accidentally,  so 
to  say,  and  naturally  too,  through  intense  suffering  and 
almost  continual  fasting,  they  were  in  an  abnormal 
condition,  through  which  they  were  readily  suscepti 
ble  of  catalepsy,  clairvoyance,  and  trance,  and  through 
which,  too,  they  were  liable  to  be  mesmerized  by 
chance.  And  even  in  illustration  of  the  stigmata,  the 
records  of  mesmerism  might  be  found  to  furnish  some 
curious  though  distant  analogies.  And  the  marks  on 
the  body,  even  though  they  be  like  those  of  a  crucifix, 
would  not  seem  of  necessity  and  exclusively  to  argue 
the  especial  favor  of  God  Most  High.  Perhaps  even 
they  might  more  properly  be  regarded  as  manifesting 


158  THE  LAST   ECSTATIC. 

human  nature,  and  the  manner  in  which  the  body  can 
be  acted  upon  from  the  state  of  the  soul ;  the  soul  of 
the  ecstatic  being  full  of  longings  and  expectations, 
and  full  of  sympathy  with  the  sufferings  emblemed  by 
a  crucifix,  and  also  in  affinity,  perhaps,  at  the  same 
time,  preternaturally  with  attendant  spirits  of  the  same 
household  of  faith  as  her  own. 

The  utmost,  logically,  which  would  seem  to  follow 
from  the  earl's  premises  would  perhaps  be,  that  among 
sensitive,  ascetic,  and  exhausted  persons  there  may  be 
a  rare  case,  now  and  then,  which  may  show  that  a 
strange  marvellous  likeness  to  a  crucifix  may  be  in 
duced  by  a  profoundly  reverential  contemplation  there 
of.  For  the  mere  marvellousness  of  the  thing  is  not 
of  itself  necessarily  encouraging.  It  may  have  been 
supernatural  and  yet  not  divine.  And  miracles  have 
sometimes  touched  where  they  certainly  did  not  mean 
to  sanction. 

Perhaps  it  ought  to  be  noticed  here  that  ecstatics 
have  been  long  known,  and  that  the  word  "  ecstasy  " 
was  not  probably  of  Christian  origin.  The  experience 
described  by  the  word  was  common  among  the  Neo- 
Platonists  in  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries.  Thus,  by 
his  biographer,  Plotinus  is  said  "  in  ecstasy  to  have 
seen  the  supreme  god,"  and  also  in  ecstasy  to  have 
been  elevated  from  the  ground.  The  manifestation  of 
the  stigmata,  was  that  by  which  Francis  of  Assisi  be 
came  famous  in  the  thirteenth  century.  Since  the 
days  of  St.  Francis,  there  have  been  about  sixty  simi 
lar  cases  recorded,  of  which  perhaps  ten  have  been 
within  the  last  thirty  years.  When  the  stigmata  ap 
peared  on  the  person  of  Maria  Mori,  they  had  even 


THE   LAST   ECSTATIC.  159 

been  anticipated  by  her  confessor  for  five  months. 
And  one  of  the  ecstatics  whom  the  earl  saw,  he  ex 
pected  would  have  been  favored  with  the  marks,  but 
she  was  not. 

But  it  is  curious,  that  as  to  the  clairvoyant  and  cata 
leptic  states,  and  as  to  the  levitation  of  the  body  in 
the  cases  of  these  ecstatics,  there  was  nothing  detailed 
by  the  earl  as  heavenly  sanction,  but  something  like  it, 
long  ago,  had  been  alleged  as  condemnatory  fact,  on 
trials  for  witchcraft. 

Of  transference  of  marks,  there  have  been  some  cu 
rious  cases  by  electricity.  Once  the  exact  likeness  of  a 
tree  was  printed  on  an  object  near,  by  a  flash  of  light 
ning. 

These  words  of  the  earl  are  noticeable  :  "  Yes  !  it  is 
under  the  very  shadow  of  the  large  crucifix,  which  is 
suspended  over  her  head,  that  the  spirit  of  ecstasy  is  in 
fused  into  her."  And  now  for  an  incident  that  stops  the 
earl's  argument  short,  and  which  would  seem  to  argue 
the  favor  of  Heaven  for  Protestants,  more  distinctly 
than  all  those  sixty  ecstatics  argue  it  for  Catholics. 
In  the  "  Adversaria  "  of  Isaac  Casaubon,  there  is  an  ac 
count  of  a  storm  at  "Wells,  in  England.  The  informa 
tion  was  given  to  Casaubon  by  the  Bishop  of  Ely,  who 
received  it  from  the  Bishop  of  Wells,  and  other  per 
sonal  witnesses.  On  a  Sunday  morning  in  the  year 
1596,  while  the  people  were  in  the  cathedral,  there 
was  such  a  tremendous  burst  of  thunder,  that  in  their 
terror  the  whole  congregation  knelt  together.  Though 
a  thunderbolt  fell,  there  was  no  one  hurt.  "But  a 
wonderful  thing  was  afterwards  discovered  by  many 
persons.  For  images  of  the  cross  were  found  marked 


160  THE   LAST   ECSTATIC. 

on  the  bodies  of  those,  who  had  been  at  the  time  in  the 
cathedral.  And  the  Bishop  of  Wells  told  the  Bishop 
of  Ely  that  his  wife  (and  she  was  a  most  honorable 
woman)  came  to  him  and  told  him,  as  a  great  miracle, 
that  there  were  marks  of  the  cross  on  her  body.  But 
when  the  Bishop  laughed  at  this,  his  wife  uncovered 
her  person,  and  proved  that  what  she  had  said  was 
true.  And  then  he  noticed  that  the  same  very  plain 
mark  of  the  cross  was  impressed  on  himself,  and  as  I 
think  on  his  arm.  While  with  others  it  was  on  the 
shoulder,  the  breast,  the  back,  and  other  parts  of  the 
body.  And  that  most  illustrious  man,  the  Lord  of  Ely, 
narrated  this  to  me,  in  such  a  manner,  as  forbade  any 
doubt  about  the  truth  of  the  history." 

In  this  brief  account  there  is  involved  probably  a 
grand  chapter  on  psychology,  if  only  one  knew  how  to 
evolve  it.  But  the  philosophy  of  the  matter  is  akin 
to  the  marks  of  crucifixion  on  the  ecstatics,  much 
more  closely  than  would  at  first  thought  seem  at  all 
likely.  Also,  there  have  been  persons,  as  the  writer 
hereof  can  testify,  as  it  happens,  on  his  personal 
knowledge,  although  they  are  perhaps  more  rare  than 
ecstatics,  with  whom  have  appeared  spontaneously  on 
the  skin,  and  as  though  very  slightly  embossed,  letters, 
figures,  and  flowers.  One  of  these  instances  was  a  rose 
of  the  breadth  of  two  inches,  which  appeared  in  an 
swer  to  a  sudden  suggestion,  and  which  was  as  accu 
rately  marked  as  in  a  fine  etching.  The  explanation, 
not  of  course  of  the  shapes,  but  of  the  marks,  was  that 
they  had  been  made  by  the  blood  having  been  forced 
into  capillary  veins,  so  as  to  press  them  against  the 
cuticle,  and  thus  to  redden  and  slightly  raise  it.  These 


THE   LAST   ECSTATIC.  161 

marks,  which  had  been  watched  while  coining  out, 
vanished  without  leaving  a  trace  in  less  than  ten  min 
utes.  As  to  how  this  happened,  even  though  it  were, 
as  it  might  well  seem  to  be,  through  an  inflation  of 
capillary  veins,  passes  conjecture  :  because  a  certain 
belief  that  it  was  by  the  agency  of  an  intervening 
spirit,  if  adopted,  is  not  explanation,  but  only  some 
semblance  of  information,  and  is  indeed  marvel  added 
to  mystery. 

It  is  a  matter  of  not  unreasonable  conjecture,  whether 
Dr.  Newman  would  have  entered  the  Catholic  Church 
in  his  state  of  mind,  if  he  had  known  of  the  experi 
ence  of  the  Bishop  of  Wells  ;  for,  not  improbably  it 
would  have  seemed  to  counterbalance  the  argument 
from  the  ecstatics,  by  the  Earl  of  Shrewsbury. 

But  however  that  may  be,  with  the  preceding  com 
ments,  the  latest  account  of  an  ecstatic  may  be  read 
by  some  persons  with  more  patience,  than  it  might 
otherwise  have  been,  and  by  some  others  with  less  be 
wilderment.  For  the  excitement  made  by  that  famous 
letter  of  the  earl's  was  not  so  much  because  of  what  it 
was  in  itself,  as  it  was  through  the  temper  of  the  peo 
ple  addressed.  They  were  acted  upon  by  that  letter 
as  though  by  an  apparition ;  whereas  they  would  not 
have  been  affected  by  it  so  strongly,  if  they  had  not 
been  men  of  their  time,  even  while  trying  hard  to  be 
long  to  the  Middle  Ages,  and  if  they  had  not  been,  so 
to  say,  anti-supernaturalists  in  reading  and  observation, 
like  almost  everybody  else. 

The  account  of  the  Belgian  ecstatic  has  been  seen 
by  multitudes  of  Protestants,  but  it  will  have  been  no 
ticed  by  very  few  persons,  because  generally  the  eyes 


162  THE  LAST   ECSTATIC. 

of  Protestants  are  proof  against  reporting  such  things 
to  their  brains.  Marvellous  occurrences  are  as  com 
mon  now,  perhaps,  as  ever  they  were  in  the  Middle 
Ages ;  and  they  are  published  in  the  newspapers;  to  a 
far  greater  extent  than  most  readers  would  easily  be 
lieve.  But  even  what  are  read  and  accepted  as  facts  are 
seldom  or  never  retained  in  the  mind,  but  fade  from  the 
memory  like  dreams,  as  having  no  hold  and  no  proper 
place.  For  indeed  by  education,  and  in  accordance 
with  the  intellectual  temper  of  the  age,  and  as  an  ef 
fect  of  modern  literature,  there  is  an  effort,  unconscious, 
but  not  therefore  the  less  real,  in  almost  every  mind 
to  throw  off  every  preternatural  recollection  as  being 
useless,  foreign,  uncongenial,  and  inwardly  indigestible. 
And  thus  always  many  good  intelligent  persons  are 
at  the  mercy  of  the  first  prodigy,  which  may  actually 
strike  them.  And  if  they  should  show  themselves  in 
sane  with  it,  it  is  because  really  they  were  already  in 
sane,  as  having  been  unreasonably  sceptical,  as  hav 
ing  hardened  themselves  habitually  against  the  facts 
of  the  universe,  and  as  having  despised  the  hints 
which  are  allowed  to  transpire  from  time  to  time  as  to 
a  world  of  spirit,  invisible  indeed,  but  interfused  among 
things  seen  and  temporal,  and  pervading  them,  though 
commonly  it  may  be  without  touching. 

And  now  if  any  one  would  ask  the  writer,  as  to  what 
then  he  thinks  of  the  stigmata  on  the  persons  of  the 
ecstatics,  he  would  say  that  they  may  be  preternatural 
without  therefore  being  divine  ;  and  though  they  may 
be  the  effects  of  a  certain  kind  of  intense  devotion, 
that  they  may  still  not  be  distinguishing  favors.  The 
case  of  Louise  Lateau,  of  Belgium,  could  it  be  under- 


THE   LAST   ECSTATIC.  163 

stood  as  the  angels  see  it,  would  no  doubt  be  of  great 
use  for  clearly  understanding  spiritual  laws,  which 
every  person  is  living  under,  though  blindly.  Nor 
does  this  remark  presuppose,  that  her  state  must  there 
fore  be  akin  to  the  angelic  ;  because  it  is  even  from  the 
study  of  disease,  that  much  has  been  learned  as  to  the 
laws  of  health.  And  it  is  reverently  suggested  that 
Louise  Lateau  is  an  ecstatic  with  the  stigmata,  not 
probably  because  she  is  more  favored  of  heaven  than 
every  other  girl  in  Belgium,  nor  primarily  because  even 
of  her  being  a  Catholic,  but  because  of  some  pecu 
liarity  in  her  constitution,  by  which  anciently  perhaps 
she  might  have  been  a  prophetess,  if  the  Lord  had 
needed  her ;  and  by  which,  too,  if  she  had  been  a  fer 
vent  Friend  or  an  earnest  Methodist,  she  would  have 
been  receptive  of  gifts  and  graces  corresponding  per 
haps  to  her  faith,  and  to  such  hopes  and  expectations 
as  might  have  been  strong  in  her,  by  her  religious  con 
nections. 

By  peculiarity  of  constitution,  however,  is  not  meant 
anything  in  kind  different  from  human  nature,  but 
only  something  remarkable  in  degree,  —  a  sensibility  in 
receptiveness  common  to  everybody,  though  only  very 
feeble  perhaps  in  most  persons ;  and  which  being  great 
in  itself  and  from  birth,  may  now  and  then  operate 
wonderfully,  from  accidental  causes  such  as  fasting,  or 
through  illness,  from  some  negative  and  restraining 
powers  in  the  system  having  been  enfeebled. 

A  case  like  this  of  Louise  Lateau  ought  to  be  of  in 
finite  interest  in  theology.  That  there  may  be  no  know 
ing  what  to  make  of  it  is  no  reason  for  ignoring  it,  but 
is  a  reason  rather  for  keeping  it,  in  mind,  against  the 


164  THE   LAST   ECSTATIC. 

coming  of  light  on  it  from  heaven  :  and  which  no  doubt 
will  arrive  as  soon  as  men  are  willing  to  receive  it. 
And  it  will  come  probably  by  channels  already  exist 
ent  and  waiting,  psychological,  medical,  and  scientific. 

Of  course,  all  facts  are  not  of  equal  use  to  every 
body,  any  more  than  hay  is  good  for  chickens  as  well 
as  horses,  although  oats  may  be.  And  there  are  large 
classes  of  creatures  for  whom  diamonds  must  ever  be 
valueless,  such  as  bumble-bees,  pigs,  and  the  dirt-eat 
ing  men  of  South  Africa. 

And  it  is  not  everybody,  for  whom  the  case  of  Louise 
Lateau  can  be  expected  to  be  interesting ;  and  neither 
is  it  likely  to  be  so  for  all  theologians,  though  it  really 
ought  to  be.  And  there  may  be  some  who  will  wish 
that  it  had  never  happened,  or  had  never  been  pub 
lished.  And  what  will  that  wish  of  theirs  be  but  in 
fidelity  to  the  truth ;  and  what  will  the  state  of  mind 
of  such  persons  be,  but  blasphemy  against  the  manner 
in  which,  under  God,  the  world  manifests  its  hidden 
powers  ? 

As  to  the  story  of  Louise  Lateau,  and  other  such 
things,  there  are  words  of  Plato  which  are  worthy  of 
notice  by  all  persons,  and  especially  by  some  good 
Christians,  although  they  are  older  than  Christianity 
by  some  four  hundred  years.  They  are  contained  in 
his  Second  Epistle :  "  For  almost  as  it  seems  to  me, 
than  such  as  these,  there  are  no  histories,  which  are 
more  ridiculous  to  the  herd  of  men,  and  none  either, 
which  to  better  minds  are  more  wonderful,  or  more 
capable  of  inspiring  them  with  a  sense  of  God." 

And  now  since  this  last  paragraph  was  written,  there 
has  been  published  a  volume  entitled  "  Planchette  ;  or, 


THE   LAST   ECSTATIC.  165 

The  Despair  of  Science."  And  if  indeed  science  should 
despair  of  the  planchette  to-day,  it  ought  not  to  do  so 
long,  any  more  than  the  left  hand  should  despair  of  its 
ability,  while  there  is  a  good  right  hand  to  help  it. 
And  through  science,  when  it  is  informed  by  psychol 
ogy,  the  strangeness  of  the  planchette  may  develop 
like  the  Greek  mystery  about  amber.  Amber,  with 
the  Greeks,  was  "  electron  "  ;  and  with  rubbing  it,  was 
got  what  was  called  electricity.  It  was  an  unaccount 
able,  useless  manifestation:  But  since  the  time  of 
Aristotle,  and  through  science,  it  has  developed  into 
speech  like  lightning,  between  man  and  man,  and 
across  distances  perhaps  twenty  or  thirty  times  greater 
than  any  flash  of  lightning  ever  illumined. 

In  the  volume  referred  to  there  is  quoted  a  letter 
written  at  Eochester,  nineteen  years  ago,  and  which 
was  published  in  many  newspapers  at  the  time.  That 
letter  was  by  the  present  writer.  It  told  fairly  what 
was  witnessed  at  a  spiritual  sitting,  and  which,  as  it 
happened,  was  nothing  satisfactory  whatever.  And  if 
the  writer  did  not  conclude  correctly  as  to  the  motives 
of  the  mediums,  it  may  be  some  excuse  for  him  that 
at  that  time  the  Rochester  knockings  were  to  him  an 
unheard-of  novelty,  and  that  the  mediums  themselves 
at  that  time  knew  nothing  of  the  laws  and  limitations 
of  the  phenomena  which  were  manifested  through 
them. 


MATTER  AND  SPIEIT. 


ENERALLY  at  present  the  minds  of  men  are 
very  impatient  of  anything  supernatural.  It  is 
a  result  partly  of  the  materialistic  philosophy  which 
lately  dominated  in  all  things,  and  partly  also  of  the 
hard,  practical  tone  of  the  times,  by  which  everything 
is  judged  according  as  it  will  work  somehow  or  other, 
and  promptly  in  a  factory  or  a  creed. 

Now  and  then  perhaps  on  a  Sunday,  or  in  the  evening 
twilight,  a  man  thinks  gently  on  some  strange  occur 
rence,  bordering  perhaps  on  the  supernatural,  which  he 
has  heard'  of,  and  which  perhaps  may  have  been  a  fam 
ily  tradition.  And  thus  he  has  his  mind  filled  with 
thoughts  and  feelings  from  his  inner  spirit.  The  air 
about  him  feels  as  though  almost  it  were  aglow  with 
latent  light.  In  his  ears  there  is  an  expectant  sense, 
as  though  of  something  just  ready  to  speak.  And  al 
most  it  is  as  though  he  felt  himself,  through  all  his 
senses,  porous  and  open  to  a  surrounding  world  of  spir 
it.  But  with  a  rap  on  the  door,  or  a  sudden  start,  the 
man  is  himself  again,  as  he  thinks  :  though  indeed  it 
is  only  his  inferior  self  which  he  thus  suddenly  be 
comes.  And  he  is  a  man  of  the  world  again,  because 
some  divine  affinities  of  his  nature  have  suddenly 
shrunk  into  unconsciousness.  And  so,  in  a  moment, 
things  have  become  incredible  for  him,  with  which, 


MATTER   AND   SPIRIT.  167 

however,  his  soul  had  been  delighting  herself,  as  con 
nected  with  the  communion  of  saints,  the  significance 
of  miracles,  and  the  nearness  of  the  spiritual  world. 

There  is  an  inner  spirit  in  us,  or  rather  there  is  an 
interior  state  of  the  spirit,  which  sometimes  we  know 
of ;  and  when  silently  and  softly  we  seem  to  breathe  the 
air  of  another  world  than  this  ;  and  when  there  comes 
over  us  a  peace,  not  as  the  world  gives ;  and  when  our 
thoughts  come  in  upon  our  minds  steadily  and  grandly, 
and  as  though  from  afar  off;  and  when  the  heart  feels, 
as  it  were,  the  magnitude  of  some  crisis  closing  round 
it;  and  when  indeed  we  are  a  wonder  to  ourselves. 
And  under  the  fresh  effect  of  such  an  experience 
the  miracles  of  history  seem  to  be  but  in  fair  keep 
ing  with  human  nature,  and  even  with  our  individual 
selves,  because  of  "  the  signs  and  wonders  "  which  our 
own  souls  are  capable  of  giving  out.  But  more  quick 
ly  than  the  sensitive  plant,  at  the  touch  of  flesh  and 
blood,  does  this  inner  self  shrink  and  contract,  and, 
immortal  as  it  is,  yet  seem  to  fade  and  disappear. 

The  Book  of  Revelation  is  not  for  reading  in  any  and 
every  mood.  And  it  is  not  at  all  possible  that  a  Mate 
rialist  can  understand  St.  John,  as  he  writes,  "  I  was 
in  the  Spirit  on  the  Lord's  day,  and  heard  behind  me  a 
great  voice,  as  of  a  trumpet."  And  a  man  must  be  a 
Spiritualist  by  philosophy,  and  at  least  as  intelligently 
so  as  George  Fox,  the  Quaker,  before  he  can  know  what 
was  to  be  listened  to  and  how,  when  he  reads,  "  He 
that  hath  an  ear  let  him  hear  what  the  Spirit  saith 
unto  the  churches." 

And  it  is  because  the  Book  of  Eevelation,  manifest 
ly,  is  not-  for  every  state  of  mind  that  we  may  infer  or 


168  MATTER   AND   SPIRIT. 

at  least  suspect  that  the  Scriptures,  generally,  may  not 
always  be  read  aright  by  human  eyes,  simply  as  being 
very  sharp.  The  Bible  cannot  possibly  be  a  revelation 
of  the  Spirit,  to  the  angry  minds  of  textual  controver 
sialists.  And  therein  lies  indeed  the  true  objection  to 
the  use  of  creeds.  For  supposing  that  Christianity,  as 
a  whole,  were  capable  of  being  put  into  words,  an  at 
tempt  at  a  creed  might  be  reasonably  and  fairly  made, 
on  every  fresh  kaleidoscopic  combination  of  texts  or 
doctrines,  which  a  congregation  or  an  individual  might 
believe.  But  for  really  Christian  effect,  it  would  seem 
as  though  every  individual  spirit  ought  for  itself  to 
find  and  feel  the  Spirit  in  the  Scriptures,  notwithstand 
ing  any  intellectual  aids,  by  which  reverentially  it 
might  be  thought  desirable  "that  a  person  should  be 
prepared  for  that  solemn  communion  of  the  finite  with 
the  infinite. 

By  the  temper  of  the  times  it  is  the  last  thing  to  be 
wished  for,  or  hoped  for,  and  so,  of  course,  it  would  be 
the  very  last  thing  to  be  minded,  —  anything  fresh  of  a 
spiritual  origin.  It  is  a  disease  of  this  age,  though  now 
rapidly  abating,  that  was  just  breaking  out  when  the 
word  for  it  was  invented  by  Ralph  Cudworth,  which 
was  pneumatophobia,  —  a  shrinking  from  spirit,  as 
cause,  or  explanation,  or  hope,  and  thereby  and  there 
fore,  of  course,  from  belief  even,  as  very  strongly  .felt. 

There  have  been  ages  not  barbarous,  nor  yet  besot 
ted,  when  a  variation  from  the  order  of  nature,  or  what 
seemed  to  be  such,  was  what  kingdoms  would  have 
consulted  about,  through  eminent  men.  But  to-day, 
by  thousands  of  the  most  intelligent  persons,  varia 
tions  from  the  laws  of  nature  might  be  heard  of  and 


MATTER   AND   SPIRIT.  169 

even  credited,  and  yet  awaken  no  interest.  And  now 
why  should  this  be,  or  even  be  possible  ?  Simply  it  is 
because  it  is  not  in  the  people  to  be  interested.  And 
that  is  because  they  have  not  such  a  belief  in  the  spir 
itual  world,  as  that  they  can  possibly  imagine  even  the 
possibility  of  a  sign  of  it  near  them.  The  spiritual 
world  about  them,  and  they  themselves  now  in  it,  and 
connected  with  it,  and  as  certainly  so  as  they  ever 
will  be,  after  they  have  lost  or  slipped  their  bodies, 
and  according  to  philosophy  and  revelation  both  !  It 
is  a  thing  to  them  inconceivable,  provoking,  and  ridic 
ulous,  and  what  they  can  neither  think  nor  feel.  But 
really,  whether  it  pleases  them  or  not,  it  is  so  that  they 
are  made  ;  and  also  the  thing  which  they  do  not  like 
to  think  has  been  the  glory  of  the  greatest  thinkers, 
since  the  world  began,  and  has  been  the  inspiring  and 
informing  thought,  by  which,  as  by  a  thermometer,  the 
spiritual  height  of  any  age  is  to  be  measured,  —  not  its 
height  indeed,  as  to  the  externality  and  fashion  of 
life,  nor  as  to  science  which  is  conversant  with  the  ex 
ternality  of  the  universe,  but  as  to  faith  and  poetry, 
and  those  virtues  and  graces,  which  in  greater  or  less 
numbers  are  their  inseparable  concomitants. 

Often  a  good  Christian  will  say,  "  I  hope,  and  for 
worlds  I  would  not  but  think,  that  after  I  am  dead 
somehow  I  shall  be  resuscitated  and  live  in  God  for 
ever."  And  then  it  is  a  terrible  shock  to  him,  should 
he  be  reminded  that  now  already  in  God  "  we  live  and 
move  and  have  our  being."  And  then  such  a  man 
will  look  about  him  in  despair,  and  wish  that  he  were 
not  bound  quite  to  believe  it.  For  he  is  thinking  to 
himself  the  while,  "  What !  living  in  God  now,  and  I 
8 


170  MATTER   AND   SPIRIT. 

what  I  am  ? "  And  the  worst  of  it  is  what  the  man 
himself  does  not  know,  that  so  probably  it  will  have 
to  be  with  him  to  all  eternity,  so  long  as  he  himself  is 
what  he  is,  —  so  long  as,  somehow  or  other,  the  primi 
tive  instincts  of  his  spirit  are  stifled  :  because  an  actual 
spirit,  as  he  is  even  now,  though  embodied  for  a  while, 
the  man  has  no  feeling  of  the  spiritual  universe  sur 
rounding  him,  no  sense  of  it  as  power,  nor  any  imme 
diate  expectations  from  it,  by  the  way  either  of  fear  or 
hope. 

We  are  spiritual  creatures  now,  though  embodied, 
and  really  living  in  a  spiritual  world,  however  much 
it  may  be  clouded  to  our  perceptions,  or  it  would  never 
have  been  written  for  Christians,  "  Draw  nigh  to  God, 
and  he  will  draw  nigh  to  you."  And  that  which  is 
written  is  written,  although  we  are  what  we  are,  and 
notwithstanding  however  divinely  we  may  walk,  that 
we  are  not  to  expect  ever  to  be  met  by  the  glories 
which  were  witnessed  by  "  the  seven  angels  before  the 
throne  of  God."  But  still,  just  as  really  as  there  were 
unearthly  splendors  for  those  heavenly  eyes  to  see,  when 
they  looked,  so  there  are  experiences  of  unworldly  ori 
gin  which,  with  expectation,  our  spirits  are  in  the  way 
to  find,  and  which  serve  as  assurances  of  faith  and  an 
swers  to  prayer.  Speaking  like  an  immortal,  but  with 
a  sense  of  our  infantile  state  for  fleshliness,  says  St. 
John,  "  Beloved,  now  are  we  the  sons  of  God,  and  it 
doth  not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be :  but  we  know 
that  when  he  shall  appear,  we  shall  be  like  him ;  for 
we  shall  see  him  as  he  is."  Already  in  us  prisoners 
of  nature  there  are  powers,  susceptibilities,  and  right 
ful  expectations  which  reach  beyond  the  region  of 


MATTER   AND   SPIRIT.  171 

nature  for  their  objects.  "  Our  Father  which  art  in 
heaven "  may  begin  a  prayer,  which  may  be  heard 
beyond  the  sun,  and  quite  apart  from  the  laws  of 
acoustics  and  gravitation  ;  and  perhaps  also  it  may  be 
offered  as  incense  before  the  throne  by  angels  in  whose 
view,  amid  wide-spread  splendors,  all  earths  and  suns 
are  but  like  thin  vapors. 

The  child  unborn  has  its  senses  for  the  world  upon 
which  it  is  to  emerge :  eyes  for  the  light  by  which  it 
is  to  see ;  ears  for  those  waves  of  sound  through  the 
atmosphere  by  which  it  is  to  hear,  and  infantile  in 
stincts,  serving  for  life  and  prophetic  of  it,  and  which 
it  delights  a  mother's  heart  to  recognize.  And  indeed 
a  child  in  the  womb  has  not  only  an  eye  for  seeing 
about  the  world  into  which  it  is  to  be  born,  but  an 
eye  also  which  will  fit  a  telescope  upwards  and  a  mi 
croscope  downwards  for  exploration  ;  and  has  also  con 
genital  faculties,  through  which  it  will  grow  into  the 
ways  of  the  world,  and  fill  a  place  in  society.  And 
just  so,  in  this  womb  of  nature,  wherein  "  the  crea 
ture  waiteth  for  the  manifestation  of  the  sons  of  God," 
human  beings  have  all  the  spiritual  faculties  which  are 
to  fit  them  for  the  spiritual  world,  —  eyes  of  the  spirit, 
a  spiritual  understanding,  ears  with  which  to  hear 
what  the  Spirit  saith,  and  —  0  strange,  unearthly,  but 
sure  experience  !  —  a  susceptibility  by  which  "  the 
Spirit  also  helpeth  our  infirmities  ;  for  we  know  not 
what  we  should  pray  for  as  we  ought :  but  the  Spirit 
itself  maketh  intercession  for  us  with  groanings  which 
cannot  be  uttered." 

All  that  is  here  attempted  to  be  said,  about  persons 
in  the  flesh  being  open  to  effects  from  the  world  of 


172  MATTER   AND   SPIRIT. 

spirit,  is  strong  conviction,  is  inmost  knowledge  to  the 
man  who  has  ever  felt  the  Spirit  praying  inside  of  his 
spirit,  and  informing  his  prayers,  with  an  earnestness, 
and  faith,  and  wisdom  which  were  a  wonder  to  him 
self,  and  an  awful  mystery,  when  at  the  end  he  said 
"Amen."  And  the  inference  from  this  is  what  St. 
Paul  shall  declare.  And  the  words  are  from  his  grand 
argument  on  the  struggle  of  the  creature  in  its  earth 
ly  environment,  and  against  it,  and  they  are  that  we 
mortals  are  "  waiting  for  the  adoption,  to  wit,  the  re 
demption  of  our  body." 

"  There  is  a  natural  body,  and  there  is  "  —  the  apos 
tle  does  not  say  that  there  is  to  be,  or  shall  be,  but 
that  there  is  —  "  and  there  is  a  spiritual  body."  And 
the  Greek  word  for  renewed  life  after  death  recognizes 
that  statement  of  St.  Paul's  in  a  manner  which  the 
Latin-English  word  "  resurrection"  does  not,  common 
ly.  By  dissolution  in  the  earth,  "  bare  grain,  it  may 
chance  of  wheat,  or  of  some  other  grain,"  shows  what 
a  body  had  been  latent  in  it,  though  invisible,  yet  alive 
and  wonderful,  "  first  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  and  af 
ter  that  the  full  corn  in  the  ear."  And  there  is  not  a 
man  living  but  has  in  him  latent  a  spiritual  body, 
endowed  already  with  all  those  faculties,  by  which 
hereafter  he  may  be  free  of  the  heavens,  and  feel 
himself  at  home  in  the  house  of  many  mansions,  and 
as  St.  Paul  would  say,  no  stranger  or  foreigner,  but  a 
fellow-citizen  with  the  saints,  and  of  the  household 
of  God.  The  saint  on  earth  has  in  him  already  all 
that  he  is  to  be  in  the  great  hereafter. 

And  thus  for  a  human  being  with  a  twofold  consti 
tution,  by  which,  mentally,  he  is  adapted  to  this  earth, 


MATTER   AND   SPIRIT.  173 

and  spiritually  also  to  a  new  earth,  under  new  heavens, 
it  might  seem  that  not  impossibly  or  incredibly  a  person 
might  now  and  then,  and  through  some  one  or  other  of 
the  thousand  sensibilities  by  which  he  is  an  immortal 
soul,  have  experiences  outside  of  the  sphere  of  the  nat 
ural  man.  And  unless  barred  from  such  a  supposition  by 
a  divine  revelation,  it  might  seem  reasonable  to  antici 
pate  that  sometimes,  with  the  weakening  of  "  the  body 
of  this  death,"  the  latent  faculties  of  the  immortal 
spirit  might  even  begin  to  manifest  themselves.  And 
indeed  than  the  preternatural  experiences  of  the  dying, 
there  are  no  phenomena  perhaps  in  mental  history 
which  are  more  common.  Said  Schiller,  for  his  last 
words  in  dying,  "  So  many  things  are  becoming  to  me 
so  much  plainer  than  they  were."  And  no  doubt  the 
light  in  which  he  had  wished  to  live  was  brightening 
on  his  soul.  But  more  express  even  than  this  is  the 
multitudinous  testimony,  which  might  easily  be  gath 
ered,  as  to  the  death-bed  experiences  of  persons  within 
the  last  few  years,  and  by  which  it  would  seem  as 
though  the  departing  spirit  were  sometimes  met,  before 
parting  from  the  body,  by  some  sign  of  the  new  world 
near  it,  by  unearthly  music  perhaps,  or  by  some  spirit 
who  was  once  an  old  friend,  or  by  some  vision  of  glory 
unutterable. 

But  also,  in  the  same  manner,  and  for  analogous 
reasons,  strange  preternatural  experiences,  originating 
with  spiritual  causes,  may  reasonably  be  credited,  for 
persons  of  peculiar  conditions,  whether  congenital  as 
to  the  body,  or  accidentally  incurred  by  disease,  or 
occasioned  perhaps  by  an  unusual  sensitiveness,  as  to 
some  of  the  forces  which  are  necessary  to  vitality, 


174  MATTER   AND  SPIRIT. 

electric,  magnetic,  odic,  and  others  perhaps  more  occult 
than  they.  Thus  somnambulism  supposes  the  natural 
eye  to  be  asleep,  while  the  eye  of  the  spirit  sees  through 
it.  In  clairvoyance  there  is  sight  independently  of 
matter,  as  to  the  substance  of  the  eye,  and  whether 
bandaged  or  not,  and  as  to  walls  or  long  distances  ; 
and  yet,  as  an  effect  of  looking  through  a  material  eye 
ball,  the  spirit  sees  material  objects.  But  indeed  won 
ders  would  seem  to  be  likely  enough,  as  the  experi 
ences  of  spirits  in  the  flesh,  and  of  mortals  on  their 
way  to  immortality.  And  how,  then,  might  it  bQ  prop 
er  that  such  things  should  be  judged  of  ?  Just  as  such 
things  ought  to  be,  by  such  creatures  as  men  and  espe 
cially  by  the  enlightened  disciples  of  Christ,  —  by  rules 
of  probability  and  analogy  and  good  sense,  and  by  the 
grand  ruling  test  as  to  what  "  the  Spirit  itself  beareth 
witness  with  our  spirits."  And  indeed  St.  Paul  could 
imagine  the  possibility  of  an  angel  from  heaven  preach 
ing  what  Christian  common  sense  might  boldly  and  at 
once  count  accursed. 

Always  in  an  emergency  of  thought,  it  is  well  that  a 
man  should  bethink  himself  as  to  where  he  is,  and  what 
he  is.  Because  all  things  are  not  uniformly  of  the  same 
significance  everywhere.  That  may  seem  to  be  erro 
neous  which  is  absolutely  correct.  And  scientifically 
between  navigators  and  the  polar  star  there  are  causes 
of  variation,  as  to  guidance,  which  have  to  be  allowed 
for,  if  that  guidance  is  to  prove  exact.  The  polar  star 
is  polar  truly  for  only  the  wisest  people.  And  it  is 
not  to  everybody,  idle  and  studious  alike,  and  not  to 
the  prejudiced  at  all,  that  even  the  Scriptures  can 
yield  their  true  meaning.  What  a  man  does  not  want 


MATTER   AND   SPIRIT.  175 

to  see,  he  will  be  very  likely  not  to  recognize.  And 
this  may  happen  about  a  fact,  perhaps  of  no  great  im 
portance  in  itself,  but  which  yet,  because  of  his  state 
of  mind,  might  for  him  individually  be  newness  of 
thought,  or  a  clew  to  some  baffling  and  bewildering 
mystery. 

That  method  of  picking  and  choosing  evidences, 
that  fashion  of  thinking  only  alongside  of  well-trod 
den  roads,  that  determination  which  idolizes  agreeable 
facts,  and  winks  hard  against  what  are  irreconcilable, 
which  has  been  so  common  in  theology,  and  for  the 
sake  of  it,  —  of  all  that,  what  possible  outcome  can  there 
be  but  folly,  such  as  earlier  or  later  must  become  plain  ? 
"  Unclean  spirits  "  are  not  a  very  pleasant  subject  of 
thought  to  any  one,  and  to  theologians  in  some  en 
lightened  regions  almost  they  are  inconceivable  and 
incredible.  And  yet  because  of  the  New  Testament, 
it  might  seem  as  though  a  person  could  not  quite  well 
understand  what  Christ  was  in  the  world,  without  some 
philosophy  or  understanding  as  to  those  "  unclean  spir 
its  "  whom  he  commanded,  and  against  whom  he  gave 
his  apostles  power.  And  in  the  Old  Testament,  "  fa 
miliar  spirits"  and  their  kindred  are  as  essential  to 
the  action  as  Moses  and  Elijah.  And  for  lack  of  this 
perception,  there  are  many  ingenious  and  elaborate 
works  on  the  Old  Testament,  which  could  only  be 
equalled  by  some  such  work  as  a  history  of  the  battle 
of  Waterloo,  wherein  the  French  should  be  regarded, 
for  some  philosophical  reasons,  as  having  been  only 
figures  of  speech.  And  yet  the  historical  reality  of  a 
"  familiar  spirit "  made  certain  by  modern  analogies, 
would  probably  be  but  an  unwelcome  fact,  in  many 


176  MATTER   AND   SPIRIT. 

theological  schools.  Yet  facts  —  facts  are  the  words  in 
which  the  universe  reads  to  man  its  unending  lesson. 
They  may  be  odious  by  themselves,  sometimes,  while 
yet  through  their  connections,  they  may  be  very  val 
uable.  But  because  of  human  weakness,  it  is  often 
the  alternative  about  a  new  fact,  that  either  it  is  an 
idol,  or  else  anathema.  And  truly  also  a  fact  is 
often  treated  in  this  manner,  when  really,  except  as 
being  novel  for  a  few  people,  it  is  nothing  more  than  a 
pebble,  a  mere  make-weight  in  the  universe,  which 
pebble,  however  just  in  its  place  and  office,  is  of  uni 
versal  concern. 

But  with  anything  extraordinary  to  think  of,  or  phe 
nomenal,  a  man  should  remember  himself.  And  then 
instead  of  finding  himself  on  a  judgment-seat,  or  right 
fully  glowing  with  the  consciousness  of  a  seraph,  he 
will  feel  himself  to  be  but  a  mortal  creature,  walking 
and  working  about  a  little  spot  in  a  little  planet,  at 
tendant  upon  a  sun,  which  sun  itself  is  reasonably  sus 
pected  of  being  also  only  a  planet.  But  "  he  that  hurn- 
bleth  himself  shall  be  exalted."  And  when  a  man  in 
that  manner  has  felt  his  nothingness,  he  is  ready  then 
to  appreciate  the  compliment  which  science  pays  him, 
by  her  assurance  that  the  weight  of  his  body,  his  mere 
fleshly  clothing,  is  what  the  universe  could  not  spare, 
without  planets  and  suns  and  fixed  stars  running  to 
gether,  and  there  being  an  end  of  all  things. 

And  in  this  way,  even  were  there  no  other  way, 
might  a  man  reasonably  suspect  that  perhaps  also 
there  are  conditions  concerning  him  as  a  spirit,  of 
which  he  may  not  necessarily  be  aware.  But  then  it 
is  said  that  between  mortal  and  immortal,  and  between 


MATTER   AND   SPIRIT.  177 

matter  and  spirit,  that  the  difference  is  such  that 
there  can  be  no  reasoning  with  a  man  from  any  cir 
cumstances  of  to-day  as  to  his  connections  with  the 
spiritual  and  eternal. 

And  by  some,  who  hold  that  this  earth  is  isolated 
from  the  spiritual  universe  surrounding  it,  on  the  sub 
ject  of  miracles,  often  axioms  are  used  as  authorities, 
which  really  have  long  been  anile  and  effete.  That 
spirit  can  never  impinge  upon  matter  is  assumed  as 
an  axiom  by  Thomas  Aquinas ;  and  it  is  pleaded  to 
day  like  a  text  from  the  gospel.  But  even  supposing 
that  it  were  true,  it  would  not  therefore  follow  that 
means  might  not  be  found.,  or  contrived,  by  which 
devils  or  angels  might  make  themselves  sensibly  felt, 
and  might  act  upon  matter.  It  is  true  that  spirit  is 
spirit,  and  matter  is  matter.  But  then  what  is  spirit, 
and  what  is  matter  ?  Of  the  difference  between  the 
two  there  are  notions  of  mediaeval  origin,  which  are 
obstinately  pleaded  to-day,  for  ends  which  Thomas 
Aquinas  and  the  schoolmen  would  never  have  saflc- 
tioned.  Also,  what  did  Thomas  Aquinas  know  of 
electricity,  galvanism,  or  magnetism  ?  What  did  he 
know  of  the  odic  force  ?  He  knew  no  more  of  them 
than  he  did  of  optics,  or  chemical  affinities,  or  the  law 
of  gravitation.  Definitions  as  to  spirit  and  matter, 
originating  ages  before  Bacon,  adduced  to-day  on  the 
subject  of  miracles  are  gross  anachronisms. 

Matter !  what  is  that  as  a  basis  whence  to  argue 
psychologically,  while  even  by  science  it  is  speculated 
that  all  the  matter  of  this  earth  may  perhaps  be  com 
pressible  into  a  nut-shell  ?  Eeally  science  is  the 
young  sister  of  spiritualism,  and  is  of  no  kin  whatever 
8*  L 


178  MATTER   AND   SPIRIT. 

with  materialism,  to  the  positive  knowledge  of  those 
who  know  them  all  three.  The  old  mediteval  under 
standing  as  to  spirit  and  matter  is  obsolete ;  for  through 
science  matter  itself  seems  semi-spiritualized.  And, 
so  to  say,  rightly  understood,  matter  and  spirit,  in  the 
common  use  of  the  words,  are  not  opposites,  except  in 
some  such  way  as  that  by  which  the  roots  of  a  tree 
in  the  ground  are  opposite  to  the  blossoms  high  up 
in  the  air. 

Spirit  cannot  impinge  upon  matter,  because  spirit 
is  spirit ;  and  spirit  is  impalpable,  and  therefore  it 
cannot  affect  what  is  solid  and  hard  !  But  when  con 
fronted  these  are  but  old-world  positions,  which  prop 
erly  were  obsolete  long  ago.  For  perhaps  the  fluids 
called  electric,  galvanic,  and  magnetic  are  material,  or 
perhaps  they  are  spiritual,  or  perhaps  they  traverse 
fields  intermediate  between  matter  and  spirit.  But  on 
any  one  of  these  suppositions,  there  are  one  or  two  old 
philosophical  axioms  as  to  spirit  and  matter,  which  are 
faMified  at  once,  just  as  owls  show  themselves  to  be 
out  of  time  and  place  when  they  attempt  to  fly  in  the 
broad  sunshine. 

The  body  of  a  man  is  not  such  matter  as  might 
sometimes  seem  to  be  supposed  by  some  philosophers, 
but  is  really  "  dust  of  the  earth,"  porous  throughout 
every  particle,  to  electricity  and  magnetism,  which  at 
least  are  semblances  of  spiritual  forces.  And  if 
Thomas  Aquinas  had  lived  in  these  last  days,  instead 
of  writing  what  he  did  on  some  points,  and  getting 
quoted  by  people  of  another  dialect  in  philosophy  than 
his,  as  having  meant  what  he  certainly  did  not  intend, 
he  would  probably  have  held  that  matter  was  such  a 


MATTER   AND   SPIRIT.  179 

mere  nothing,  such  a  mere  meeting-place  of  immate 
rial  forces,  as  scarcely  itself  to  need  notice. 

Instead  of  something  like  untanned  leather,  a  man 
has  a  skin,  by  which  he  is  open  to  influences  and  ef 
fects  from  the  ends  of  the  world,  from  the  sun,  and 
from  the  circumambient  atmosphere.  And  all  the 
more  he  learns  from  science,  the  more  wonderfully 
does  he  feel  this.  And  spiritually,  when  he  is  willing 
to  attend,  he  finds  himself  connected  in  an  equally 
wondrous  manner.  And  many  a  man  who  thinks 
himself  to  be  an  Anti-Supernaturalist,  with  an  honest 
confession  of  himself,  as  to  some  of  his  private  expe 
riences,  which,  for  fear  of  being  nonsensical,  he  is 
hardly  willing  to  acknowledge  even  to  himself,  and 
also  with  fair  respect  for  testimony  from  friends  whom 
he  personally  esteems,  —  many  a  man,  in  this  way, 
would  find  that  a  field  of  wonder  widened  round  him, 
away  in  the  far  east  of  which  he  would  feel  that  very 
probably  there  may  indeed  have  been  gates  of  revela 
tion,  and  the  place  of  rising  of  the  sun  of  righteous 
ness. 

In  Boston  an  Englishman  was  staying,  who  "  many 
lands  and  many  men  had  seen,"  and  also  many  years, 
since  the  time  of  his  leaving  school.  He  certainly  in 
his  life  had  never  dreamed  of  the  school,  and  for  many 
years  had  scarcely  even  had  a  thought  of  it.  But  one 
night  he  had  a  dream  of  it.  Accompanied  by  his 
aunt,  he  walked  up  the  road  which  led  to  the  school, 
wondering  all  the  while  at  the  perfectness  with  which 
he  remembered  every  little  object.  He  passed  in 
through  the  gate  into  the  yard,  when  he  noticed  heaps 
of  rubbish  under  the  walls  ;  on  which,  he  turned  to  his 


180  MATTER   AND   SPIRIT. 

aunt  and  said,  "  This  stuff  ought  to  be  cleared  away. 
It  never  ought  to  be  allowed  here."  Then,  with  the 
old  familiar  feeling,  he  went  up  the  steps,  and  opened 
the  door  of  the  school,  and  was  surprised  at  seeing, 
not  boys  at  their  desks,  but  six  or  eight  workmen 
busy  on  the  demolition  of  the  building.  And  at  this 
point  he  awoke.  But  in  the  morning,  while  he  was 
at  the  breakfast-table,  he  received  a  foreign  letter, 
which  proved  to  be  from  a  trustee  of  the  old  gram 
mar  school,  soliciting  a  subscription  from  him  towards 
the  rebuilding  of  the  edifice.  It  was  an  undertaking 
in  which  his  aunt  was  much  interested ;  and  she  had 
herself  given  the  address  for  the  -letter. 

The  following  narrative  is  vouched  for  by  the  best 
possible  evidence.  When  the  emigration  for  Califor 
nia  had  begun,  a  youth  belonging  to  the  town  of 
Lynn  embarked  for  San  Francisco.  After  some  months 
had  elapsed,  his  mother  dreamed  that  she  saw  him, 
that  he  looked  wofully  wasted,  and  that  he  stretched 
out  his  arms  to  her,  and  cried,  "  0  mother,  mother, 
take  me.  I  am  dying  of  thirst."  Early  the  next  day, 
she  went  to  a  very  intelligent  gentleman,  with  her 
heart  full  of  agony :  and  at  her  request,  he  put  the 
history  and  date  of  her  experience  into  writing.  After 
many  months,  eleven  perhaps,  a  letter  reached  her 
from  the  captain  of  the  ship  in  which  her  son  had 
sailed.  The  vessel  had  suffered  much  in  storms  off 
Cape  Horn.  Because  of  the  long  passage,  the  supply 
of  water  had  not  lasted.  And  for  want  of  water,  sev 
eral  persons  on  board  of  the  vessel  had  died  before 
reaching  port;  and  among  them  was  her  son.  And 
the  time  of  his  death,  as  given  by  the  captain,  corre 
sponded  with  that  night  of  the  mother's  dream. 


MATTER  AND   SPIRIT.  181 

These  two  incidents  have  never  been  published  be 
fore  ;  and  it  is  because  they  are  new  that  they  are 
given  ;  for  it  would  be  very  easy  to  cite  hundreds,  and 
perhaps  thousands,  of  recorded  dreams,  which  are  at 
least  as  impressive  as  the  preceding,  and  some  of 
which  are  even  more  striking. 

Some  six  or  seven  years  ago  a  vessel  arrived  in  Bos 
ton  with  a  great  number  of  shipwrecked  people  on 
board.  The  ship  in  which  they  had  been  sailing  had 
foundered  at  sea,  and  left  them  on  the  water,  clinging, 
most  of  them,  to  floating  objects.  A  vessel,  bound  to 
Boston,  arrived  in  their  midst  and  picked  them  up. 
But  how  did  that  ship  get  amongst  them  ?  The  cap 
tain  of  it  said  that  he  was  on  deck  at  night,  and  a 
bird  flew  in  his  face,  and  at  the  same  time  he  was 
filled  with  a  strong,  strange  feeling  for  putting  the  ship 
about,  and  sailing  back  on  the  course  by  which  he  had 
been  coming.  A  second  time,  and  a  third  time,  a 
bird  flew  in  his  face.  And  the  feeling  with  him  for 
putting  the  ship  about  became  irresistible.  And  after 
sailing  for  three  hours  in  the  dark,  he  found  himself  to 
be  a  savior  at  a  great  shipwreck. 

In  such  incidents  as  the  preceding  history  abounds, 
whether  ancient  or  modern,  classical  or  profane.  And 
why  is  it  that  they  are  read  contemptuously,  or  heard 
with  impatient  pity  ?  Simply  it  is  because  of  what  is 
ignorantly  fancied  about  the  laws  of  nature,  as  being 
exclusive  of  marvels  of  unknown  origin.  And  just  as 
though  also  the  laws  of  nature,  to  common  notion,  would 
not  have  been  against  the  possibility  of  submarine  whis 
pering,  if  it  had  ever  been  thought  of,  before  electri 
city  had  yielded  itself  to  human  management !  And 


182  MATTER   AND   SPIRIT. 

just  as  though  a  thousand  and  ten  thousand  similar 
facts  do  not  imply  something  in  common,  some  com 
mon  cause,  and  it  may  be  probably  some  common  law ! 
And  what  if  that  should  seem  to  be  a  spiritual  law  ? 
Is  that  a  supposition  so  improbable  as  that  even  Chris 
tians  cannot  think  it  ?  Such  Christians  certainly  as 
many  people  say  they  are,  cannot  think  it :  and  worse 
than  that,  they  would  rather  not  believe  it,  as  they  say ; 
and  what  is  worse  still  than  that,  they  avow  that  they 
would  rather  not  believe  what  might  seem  to  diminish 
the  peculiarity  of  the  miracles  of  the  Scriptures.  "  O  ye 
of  little  faith  ! "  As  though  God  would  be  less  God  for 
any  man's  knowing  something  about  him  of  his  own 
knowledge  !  As  though  the  Bible  would  be  less  credible 
for  being  confirmed  in  any  way,  even  the  least !  As 
though  it  had  not  been  a  Scriptural  promise,  as  to  some 
spirit-stirring  times,  both  in  the  Old  Testament  and  in 
the  New :  "  Your  young  men  shall  see  visions,  and 
your  old  men  shall  dream  dreams  "  !  And  as  though 
it  were  not  one  grand  purpose  of  the  Bible  to  develop 
the  mysteriousness  of  human  nature,  and  to  make 
men  feel,  with  many  other  strange  things,  that  wheth 
er  there  be  hosts  below  them  or  not,  or  hosts  above, 
that  by  Jesus  Christ  they  have  been  made  "kings 
and  priests  unto  God  and  his  Father  "  ! 

There  is  a  containing  sky  about  us,  in  which  the 
aurora  flames.  There  is  an  air  about  us,  in  which  it 
thunders  and  lightens.  And  surrounding  us  there  is 
an  atmosphere,  through  which  we  are  affected  for  life 
and  for  death,  in  ways  which,  year  by  year,  are  enu 
merated  by  science  more  and  more  wonderfully. 

A  spiritual  atmosphere  about  us,  or  an  atmosphere 


MATTER  AND   SPIRIT.  183 

slightly  spiritual,  or  something  which  we  mortals 
should  call  such,  —  why  should  it  be  accounted  strange 
or  incredible  ?  Surely  not  because  the  knowledge  of  it 
was  not  given  by  Moses,  or  through  the  New  Testament. 
And  if  such  a  belief  be  fairly  deducible  by  observed 
facts,  what  is  it  but  a  thing  for  which  to  thank  God,  as 
enabling  believers  in  the  Scriptures  to  conform  the 
better  to  the  rules  of  what  is  called  modern  science, 
even  on  its  own  plane  ?  Revelation  !  People  who 
believe  in  it  ought  to  be  afraid  of  nothing,  as  against 
it.  And  no  man,  with  a  soul  to  believe,  does  believe 
in  it,  with  earthly  misgivings  of  any  kind. 

It  has  been  supposed,  what  is  even  the  besetting 
difficulty  of  many  earnest  persons,  that  there  never 
can  have  been  a  call  upon  mortals  from  the  world  im 
mortal,  for  want  of  a  way,  a  channel.  Does  therefore 
the  significance  of  that  call  diminish  because  there 
might  seem  to  be  a  greater  possibility  for  it  ?  Says 
some  one,  "  Eh,  eh  !  I  never  believed  it.  But  now  I 
see  a  quarter,  a  law,  a  spiritual  connection,  whence 
that  old  call  may  have  come."  But  that  would  not 
seem  to  be  all  that  is  to  be  said,  unless  a  man  should 
think  more  of  the  importance  of  his  own  sense  than 
of  what  the  universe  itself  may  have  to  say  to  him. 
And  when  such  a  man  finds  his  own  earthiness  to  be 
more  spiritual  than  he  had  thought,  it  is  surely  no 
reason  for  his  beginning  afresh  to  doubt  about  his 
spiritual  connections. 


THE   OUTBURST   OF   SPIRITUALISM. 


THIS  is  a  great  subject,  which  can  be  noticed  in 
this  place  only  just  as  it  illustrates  the  line  of 
thought  in  these  essays. 

The  phenomena  of  Spiritualism,  even  the  simpler, 
are  very  curious  in  themselves,  but  they  are  important 
mainly  for  the  method  which  is  in  them,  and  for  the 
philosophy  which  they  involve.  Witchcraft  was  no 
good  in  its  day,  certainly ;  "  but,"  said  John  Wesley, 
"  to  give  up  witchcraft  is  to  give  up  the  Bible."  And, 
similarly,  to  gainsay  the  possibility  of  Spiritualism  is 
to  repudiate  the  spiritual  philosophy  of  the  Scriptures. 
The  writer  hereof  has  what  is  for  him  an  opinion 
about  Spiritualism,  but  it  would  need  the  space  of  a 
volume  in  which  to  justify  as  well  as  unfold  it.  And 
therefore  any  mention  of  it  here  should  be  taken,  just 
as  it  is  made,  merely  by  way  of  allusion,  and  for  the 
special  points  indicated. 

How  vast  and  various  is  the  universe,  even  to  hu 
man  apprehension  !  The  infinity  surrounding  them, 
men  are  ready  enough  to  remember  for  glory,  but  not 
for  humility.  And  so,  under  the  lamp-light  of  histo 
ry,  merely,  some  great  philosophers  show  very  strange 
ly,  as  critical  occupants  of  the  universe.  So,  often,  on 
one  subject  or  another,  have  even  great  men  shown 
themselves  to  be  as  blind  as  ants  in  a  hillock.  What 


THE   OUTBURST   OF   SPIRITUALISM.  185 

would  ants  be  the  wiser,  if  alongside  of  their  hill 
there  were  a  highway  of  commerce  reaching  to  the 
ends  of  the  world,  or  an  observatory  by  which,  as  to 
view,  the  heavens  are  brought  down  ?  It  is  true  that 
emmets  are  born  with  the  knowledge  which  they  need, 
and  that  human  beings  are  born  to  the  knowledge 
into  which  they  are  to  grow.  Yet  still  many  men  are 
as  blind  as  ants  to  "  the  balancings  of  the  clouds  " ; 
and  many  immortal  souls  have  their  faculties  for  un 
derstanding  and  belief  fast  closed  against  evidences 
of  the  spiritual  universe  about  them.  And  as  to  the 
things  of  the  spirit,  and  the  philosophy  of  the  spirit 
ual  world,  and  the  ongoings  of  the  spiritual  universe, 
there  are  still  those  even  who  can  "  see  and  not  per 
ceive,"  and  who  are  altogether  amenable  to  the  remon 
strance,  "  Having  eyes,  see  ye  not  ?  and  having  ears, 
hear  ye  not  ? " 

Is  it  indeed  true  philosophy,  which  thinks  that  every 
fresh  suggestion  from  the  universe  must  necessarily  be 
just  what  might  have  been  looked  for  ?  And  as  to 
signs  and  effects  from  the  spiritual  world,  is  mere 
probability  any  kind  of  a  rule  by  which  for  souls  to 
judge,  who  themselves  are  but  of  yesterday's  creation  ? 
Yet  there  are  people  who  are  confident  as  to  the  possi 
bilities  of  the  universe,  merely  through  their  own  feel 
of  it.  But  even  though  his  five  senses  be  sharpened 
to  the  utmost,  and  be  helped  by  every  kind  of  instru 
ment  and  contrivance,  yet  what  is  any  man  for  a  judge 
as  to  the  likelihoods  of  a  universe,  which  appeals,  not 
to  five  senses  only,  but  perhaps  to  five  hundred  facul 
ties  !  And  the  claim  of  Christianity  is  that  the  soul 
has  senses  or  sensibilities  for  channels  and  quarters, 


186  THE   OUTBURST    OF   SPIRITUALISM. 

outside  of  the  range  of  what  technically  is  called  sci 
ence. 

In  the  "  Eecognitions  of  Clement,"  that  oldest  of 
Christian  novels,  says  Simon  Magus,  "  While  all  sensa 
tions  possible  belong  to  one  of  the  five  senses,  that 
Power  which  is  superior  to  all  tilings,  cannot  add  any 
new  one."  But  to  this  it  is  replied  by  Peter,  "  That  is 
false ;  for  there  is  a  sixth  sense,  that  of  prescience ; 
for  the  other  five  senses  are  capable  only  of  knowl 
edge,  but  the  sixth  of  foreknowledge ;  which  sense 
the  prophets  had."  As  being  a  spirit  imprisoned  in  a 
body,  a  man  has  extra-mural  relations,  and  as  a  living 
soul  he  has  supersensual  susceptibilities.  And  so  it 
might  seem  to  be,  in  itself,  anything  but  incredible,  if, 
now  and  then,  some  soul  should  have  something  to  re 
port  as  to  some  foregleam  of  immortality ;  or  as  to  some 
glimpse  faintly  caught  of  the  scenery  or  the  company, 
to  which  it  is  itself  predestined ;  or  as  to  occurrences 
as  fitful  as  the  aurora  of  the  north,  and  as  wayward  as 
the  lightning,  and  which,  for  earthly  effect,  start  per 
haps  from  the  meeting-point  between  spirit  and  mat 
ter  ;  and  which  point,  it  may  be,  is  more  mysterious 
than  even  spirit  itself  is. 

To  what  can  the  outbreak  of  what  is  called  "  Spir 
itualism  "  be  likened  for  effect  ?  On  the  world  at 
large,  it  has  been  as  though  a  ghost  had  appeared  at  a 
sitting  of  the  Eoyal  Society,  in  London.  But  a  thing 
may  seem  to  be  out  of  place,  because  really  the  ob 
server  himself  is  out  of  his  own  proper  place.  And  many 
Christians  have  been  startled,  provoked,  and  confounded 
by  "  Spiritualism  "  because  of  the  extent  to  which  'they 
themselves  were  out  of  place,  intellectually  and  relig- 


THE   OUTBURST   OF  SPIRITUALISM.  187 

iously.  Not  improbably,  if  Christians  had  been  such 
believers  as  they  ought  to  have  been,  the  thing  which 
technically  is  called  Spiritualism,  might  never  have 
been  manifested  amongst  them.  Near  Jerusalem 
once,  if  the  multitude  of  the  disciples  had  not  praised 
God,  the  stones  might  immediately  have  cried  out. 
The  testimony  of  the  stones  would  not,  perhaps,  have 
been  very  edifying,  except  by  being  very  startling. 
Even  though  the  various  conditions  necessary  to  the 
phenomena  of  Spiritualism  are  not  well  known,  yet  it 
is  conceivable  and  it  is  highly  probable  that,  if  the 
atmosphere  of  the  Christian  Church  had  been  what  it 
ought  to  have  been,  instead  of  there  being  mediums 
and  their  attendant  marvels  in  the  world,  there  would 
to-day  have  been  in  the  Church  the  manifestation  of 
the  Spirit,  and  one  good  man  would  have  been  full  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  and  another  man,  perhaps,  would  have 
seen  visions,  and  still  another  would  have  abounded  in 
hope,  through  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost ;  while  for 
the  public  benefit  one  man  would  have  shown  the  gift 
of  healing,  and  another  have  been  endowed  with  the 
word  of  wisdom,  as  a  gift. 

As  it  is,  however,  some  of  the  more  material  of  the 
Spiritualistic  phenomena,  such  as  noises,  are  as  though 
the  stones  cried  out,  to  assure  men  that  really  they  are 
not  as  much  at  home  in  the  universe  as  they  fancy,  — 
that  there  may  be  qualities,  and  ways,  and  a  soul  in 
the  universe,  such  as  they  have  never  thought  of,  — 
and  that  themselves  instead  of  being  altogether  self- 
sufficient,  actually  that  they  are  but  like  bubbles  made 
of  the  will  of  God  and  spared  of  his  mercy. 

There   is  a  philosophy,   and   that,  too,  of    fervent 


188  THE   OUTBURST   OF   SPIRITUALISM. 

Christians,  which  would  have  taken  up  at  its  very 
commencement,  this  portentous  subject  of  Spiritual 
ism  as  a  very  little  thing,  —  the  philosophy  of  Henry 
More  and  Ralph  Cudworth,  and  a  long  ascending  line 
of  scholars,  reaching  up  to  the  Fathers,  and  in  amongst 
the  foundations  of  the  Church.  From  this  philosophy, 
which  implies  the  coexistence  of  two  worlds  for  man, 
—  one  for  the  body  and  another  for  the  spirit,  —  think 
ers  have  been  greatly  estranged  during  the  last  century, 
because  of  the  inordinate  and  disproportionate  atten 
tion  which  has  been  drawn  to  the  material  world,  by 
the  novelty  and  multitude  of  its  disclosures  scientifi 
cally.  But  the  more  that  the  range  of  the  five  senses 
is  explored,  and  the  more  definitely  it  is  ascertained 
what  the  properties  are  of  which  matter  is  susceptible, 
the  more  certain  it  becomes  that  in  the  universe  there 
is  a  causative  power  transcending  what  the  sun  and 
moon  have  ever  felt,  and  of  which  man  is  an  object. 

Spiritualism  ought  to  be  nothing  novel  or  strange  to 
a  theologian,  and  would  not  be  but  for  the  anomalous 
state  of  theology  itself.  Men  have  been  so  intent,  so 
long,  on  splitting  hairs  metaphysically,  for  theologi 
cal  use,  that  almost  the  breadth  itself  of  theology  has 
been  forgotten.  By  the  modes  which  are  called  Spirit 
ualistic  people  are  to-day  communicating  with  spirits 
from  a  plane  which  is  common  to  them,  with  the  Chi 
nese,  the  Esquimaux,  and  the  aborigines  of  Australia, 
and  probably  with  the  prophets  of  ancient  Greece,  and 
the  priests  of  ancient  Rome,  and  with  the  last  philo 
sophic  survivors  of  Hellenism.  And  if  any  Christians 
think  that  thereby  there  is  over  them  the  supremacy 
of  heavenly  illumination,  by  that  much,  at  least,  they 


THE   OUTBURST   OF   SPIRITUALISM.  189 

may  believe  themselves,  as  before  heaven,  to  be  stand 
ing  apart  from  where  the  early  Christians  stood. 

All  the  preceding  remarks  will  hold  true  by  those 
laws  of  evidence  by  which  still  higher  things  than 
Spiritualism  will  be  judged  a  hundred  years  hence. 
For,  what  is  under  our  eyes  proverbially  is  the  last 
thing  to  be  noticed.  But  when,  with  the  recession  of 
time,  it  has  got  to  be  viewed  on  the  plane  of  history, 
along  with  other  distant  even  though  more  important 
objects,  then  it  becomes  what  cannot  so  easily  be  over 
looked.  And  it  will  certainly  be  well  for  some  persons, 
if  by  fairness  or  spiritual  receptiveness  they  should  be 
enabled  to  anticipate  the  use  of  that  information,  which 
is  certain  to  pass  on  to  the  next  generation,  and  if 
possibly  in  no  other  way,  then  certainly  as  an  unopened 
letter,  wonderful  in  itself,  but  more  wonderful  still, 
perhaps,  as  having  never  been  minded  when  it  was 
written. 

Eightly  considered,  though  more  fully  than  is  possi 
ble  here,  the  manner  in  which  the  announcement  of 
the  phenomena  commonly  called  Spiritualistic,  was 
received  is  almost  as  instructive  as  the  manifestations 
themselves.  For  it  is  only  by  an  invincible,  inward 
anti-supernaturalism,  which  has  grown  with  them  from 
childhood,  that  commonly  men  of  ordinary  sense  have 
been  able  to  withstand  the  multitudinous  testimony, 
which  exists  as  to  some  of  the  simpler  phenomena 
which  are  called  Spiritualistic.  Nor  is  it  out  of  his 
own  strength,  nor  yet  out  of  his  own  weakness,  that  a 
man  is  able  to  contradict,  as  he  sometimes  does ;  but  it 
is  from  the  spirit  of  his  age,  from  the  breath  which  he 
draws  of  public  opinion,  and  from  his  being  one  of  a 


190  THE   OUTBURST   OF   SPIRITUALISM. 

banded  host.  And  this  remark  is  made  quite  inde 
pendently  of  what  the  thing  called  Spiritualism  may 
be  in  itself,  whether  sense  or  nonsense,  and  whether 
good,  bad,  or  indifferent.  "  Spiritualism  is  the  work  of 
evil  spirits,"  says  one  who  had  never  in  his  life  before 
had  a  word  to  say  about  devil  or  evil  spirits,  and  into 
whose  theological  mind  never  a  thought  of  one  could 
have  entered,  but  as  a  ready  way  of  answering  what 
he  was  not  prepared  to  argue.  Says  another,  "  It  is 
either  the  Devil,  or  else  it  is  imposture,  or  else  it  is  all 
a  misunderstanding  by  the  people  concerned."  This 
might  be  the  judgment  of  some  personage  standing 
aback  and  above  the  origin  of  all  philosophy  and  all 
action  on  this  earth,  but  for  the  comments  which  are 
adjoined,  and  which  show  that  the  utterance  was  sim 
ply  a  superficial  view  of  possible  chances  on  the  sub 
ject,  and  made  by  a  man  who  knew  that  he  did  really 
know  nothing  at  all  about  it.  So  again  there  was  once 
a  warning  against  Spiritualism  given  from  the  text : 
"  And  when  they  shall  say  unto  you,  seek  unto  them 
that  have  familiar  spirits,  and  unto  wizards  that  peep 
and  that  mutter :  should  not  a  people  seek  unto  their 
God  ? "  The  warning  was  well  meant,  and  much  of  it 
was  good.  But  in  the  ear  of  reason  it  was  all  spoiled, 
when  there  was  added  to  it,  from  conscientiousness, 
that  really  there  never  had  been  any  "  familiar  spirits," 
and  that  their  mention  in  the  Scriptures  was  only  by 
way  of  accommodation  to  the  prejudices  of  ignorant 
times.  And  so  it  was  that  a  theologian  thought  he 
was  denouncing  from  the  Scriptures,  what  all  the 
while  was  actually  corroborating  the  Scriptures  against 
him. 


THE   OUTBURST   OF   SPIRITUALISM.  191 

Often,  when  overwhelmed  by  evidence,  and  unable 
to  deny  the  reality  of  the  phenomena  of  Spiritualism, 
people  say,  "  Well,  what  of  it !  what  does  it  all  show  ? " 
To  which  the  answer  is  simple  enough,  though  it  can 
not  always  be  made  for  fear  of  discourtesy,  that  the 
Spiritualistic  phenomena  are  fairly  and  properly  for 
intelligent  persons,  and  fully  as  much  so  as  algebra,  or 
trigonometry,  or  logarithms.  Says  one,  "I  have  no 
doubt  that,  in  the  presence  of  some  persons,  called  me 
diums,  tables  dance  and  are  rapped  upon,  and  in  fact  I 
know  it ;  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  persons  have  been 
raised  into  the  air  without  any  human  agency,  because 
of  what  I  have  been  told.  And  I  will  acknowledge  that 
the  secret  thoughts  of  my  mind  have  been  recognized 
and  published  in  a  way  which  I  could  not  have  be 
lieved,  and  could  hardly  have  wished.  And  it  is  all  very 
funny ;  but  what  of  it  ?  "  And  this  is  sometimes  said  as 
confidently  as  though  the  intellectual  system  of  the  uni 
verse  would  echo  the  words  and  say,  "  What  of  it  ? " 

And  what  of  the  theology  which  talks  in  that  manner, 
what  of  that  ?  What  else  can  it  be  than  a  mere  sem 
blance  of  something,  the  mere  ghost  of  a  faith,  a  shell 
empty  alike  of  learning,  sense,  and  earnestness  ?  The 
phenomena  of  Spiritualism  acknowledged  to  be  real,  and 
yet  scorned  as  being  unimportant,  unsuggestive,  mean 
ingless,  and  unworthy  of  theological  notice  !  What 
flippancy  !  What  mere  blind  leadership  of  the  blind 
such  theology  must  be  !  What  a  fantastic  trick  before 
high  heaven  !  "  Thou  hast  a  name  that  thou  livest, 
and  art  dead." 

As  to  the  significance  of  those  phenomena,  it  is 
enough  to  say,  that  by  them  Bishop  Douglass,  with 


192  THE   OUTBURST   OF   SPIRITUALISM. 

his  great  name  in  theology,  would  have  been  amazed, 
as  though  by  a  latter-day  revelation ;  and  that  Hugh 
Farmer,  formerly  the  great  authority  as  to  miracles, 
would  have  found  himself  thereby  flatly  contradicted 
on  important  points,  though  not  much  to  his  grief, 
because  of  the  good,  honest  man  he  was. 

St.  Bonaventura,  while  writing  the  life  of  St.  Francis 
of  Assisi,  and  entranced  in  thought,  was,  according  to 
history,  seen  to  rise  in  the  air.  And  Thomas  Aquinas, 
who  happened  accidentally  to  be  a  witness  of  the  mar 
vel,  said,  "  Let  us  leave  a  saint  to  write  for  a  saint." 
This  anecdote  has  been  much  ridiculed,  and  yet  it  has  a 
wide  kindred  in  history.  Thus  it  is  said  that  Ignatius 
Loyola  was  seen  in  prayer  to  be  raised  more  than  a 
foot  from  the  ground,  saying,  "  0  my  God  !  0  my  Lord  ! 
0  that  men  knew  thee  !  "  But  for  persons  who  would 
wish  to  belong  to  the  communion  of  saints,  whether 
with  or  without  a  pope,  it  would  seem  to  be  important 
and  interesting,  if  anything  might  enable  them  to  be 
lieve,  instead  of  harshly  denying  what  implicates  such 
names  as  Bonaventura  and  Thomas  Aquinas. 

According  to  Farmer,  in  his  Essay  on  Miracles,  a 
human  body  raised  into  the  air,  without  any  human 
agency  whatever,  would  be  a  real  and  evident  miracle, 
because  contrary  to  the  known  course  of  nature.  A 
man  may  affirm  a  thing  to  be  true,  and  say,  "  What  of 
it  ? "  But  if  he  affirms  that  to  be  true  which  Hugh 
Farmer  could  not  imagine  as  possible,  except  by  the 
direct  intervention  of  God,  the  man  may  be  certain 
that  he  has  done  a  great  thing,  whether  he  knows  it  or 
not,  or  whether  he  knows  or  does  not  know  how  to 
make  use  of  his  own  knowledge.  The  levitation  of 


THE   OUTBURST   OF   SPIRITUALISM.  193 

the  body  is  affirmed  in  history,  in  regard  to  persons 
canonized  as  saints,  and  also  as  to  people  accused  of 
witchcraft,  and  it  has  been  again  and  again  published 
as  to  Pope  Pius  the  Seventh.  At  present,  for  almost 
all  Protestant  eyes,  even  when  acknowledged  as  being 
probably  true,  it  is  an  incongruous  fact,  but  surely  it 
ought  not  therefore  to  be  despised  as  useless  ;  but  rath 
er  it  should  be  reverentially  remembered,  as  being 
likely,  some  day,  to  flash  light  on  the  mystery  of  the 
connection  between  the  soul  and  the  body.  And  in 
deed  it  is  really  anything  but  ridiculous  to  think  of, 
by  a  person  of  reading,  and  of  good  common  sense  and 
earnestness.  And  if  it  does  not  immediately  teach  any 
thing,  it  may  yet  draw  one  up  into  the  mount  of  con 
templation,  whence  things  have  a  different  look  to  what 
they  have  in  the  common  world  below,  and  whence,  too, 
the  laws  of  nature  seem  but  like  the  surface,  and  not 
the  soul  of  things,  —  a  surface,  perhaps,  of  a  lake,  on 
which  for  ripple,  and  figure,  and  glancing  sheen,  it  is 
because  "  the  wind  bloweth  where  it  listeth,  and  thou 
hearest  the  sound  thereof,  but  canst  not  tell  whence 
it  cometh,  and  whither  it  goeth."  And  it  may  be  added 
that  also  the  remaining  clause  of  the  text  is  true,  not 
only  as  to  the  conversion  of  a  man  morally,  which 
properly  it  means,  but  also  as  to  the  change  which  a 
man  may,  and  often  does,  experience  as  to  his  estimate 
of  nature  and  science,  under  a  vivid  sense  of  what  is 
omnipotent  and  omniscient,  — "  So  is  every  one  that 
is  born  of  the  Spirit." 

"  And  what  of  it  ? "  many  good  people  have  said, 
while  acknowledging  that,  in  connection  with  what  is 
called  Spiritualism,  their  secret  thoughts  had  been  rec- 


194  THE   OUTBURST   OF   SPIRITUALISM. 

ognized  and  answered  through  many  secret  windings ; 
as  though  such  a  fact  were  nothing  more  than  the 
capricious  barking  of  .a  dog  as  to  significance.  In  a 
recent  theological  work,  Dr.  Walter  Scott  says  about 
some  printed  account  of  a  boy,  who  was  supposed  to 
be  a  demoniac,  and  to  have  been  sensible  of  an  adju 
ration,  even  when  only  addressed  to  him  in  the  secrecy 
of  the  mind,  "  I  would  ask,  Are  we  warranted  by  either 
Scripture  or  reason  to  believe  that  any  evil  spirit,  even 
if  it  had  been  Satan  himself,  can  know  the  thoughts, 
the  most  secret  workings  and  prayers  of  the  heart  in 
the  way  in  which  this  is  supposed  to  have  been  done  ? 
I  must  think  that  we  are  not."  The  theology  of  Dr. 
Scott,  in  the  history  of  opinion,  is  what  dates  mainly 
from  St.  Augustine.  And  the  writings  of  Augustine 
should  have  instructed  him  differently  from  that  state 
ment  of  his,  and  by  the  saint's  personal  experience. 

The  previous  quotation  is  contained  in  a  work,  highly 
important  at  least  as  to  the  auspices  under  which  it 
was  published,  and  the  man  who  knows  anything  dif 
ferently,  and  thinks  nothing  of  it,  stands  opposed  sim 
ply  by  information  to  people  whose  looks  would  aston 
ish  him,  if  they  were  assembled  about  him  in  their 
multitude  and  respectability.  And  if  such  a  man  should 
further  wish  to  try  out  of  the  present  age,  and  in  the 
last,  the  importance  of  what,  though  real,  he  accounts 
as  worthless,  then  let  him  listen  to  a  remark  of  Jortin 
on  Ecclesiastical  History.  "  It  seems  to  be  beyond  the 
abilities  of  any  created  being  to  know  the  thoughts  of 
a  man,  particularly  of  a  man  who  is  agitated  by  no 
passion,  and  gives  no  indications  of  his  mind  by  any 
outward  sign."  Such  a  different  thing  it  is,  for  a  man 


THE   OUTBURST   OF  SPIRITUALISM.  195 

to  talk  just  out  of  himself,  and  for  a  momentary  pur 
pose,  from  being  ready  to  hold  his  position  in  full  view 
of  history  and  men  of  earnest  thought ! 

It  may  be,  that  two  persons  might  be  found  of  the 
same  school  in  philosophy,  according  at  least  to  the 
words  in  which  one  would  claim  fellow-belief  with  the 
other ;  and  of  these  two,  one  would  say  that  the  phe 
nomena  of  Spiritualism  are  impossible,  while  the  other 
would  say  that  they  are  as  meaningless  as  the  miracles 
of  the  Scriptures,  which  may  or  not  be  true.  But  now 
thence  it  might  seem,  as  though  the  occurrence  of  an 
impossibility  might  be  nothing  wonderful. 

One  man,  with  the  first  report  of  the  simpler  phe 
nomena  of  Spiritualism,  exclaims,  "  That  is  the  Devil." 
And  another,  with  the  first  certain  communication  of 
something  which  could  not  be  other  than  preternat- 
urally  given,  exclaims,  "  The  heavens  are  open  again." 
And  besides  these,  there  are  the  large  classes  who  say, 
some  in  one  way  and  some  in  another,  but  all  of  them 
conjointly  what  is  tantamount  to  this,  —  "Ah,  well, 
very  likely,  no  doubt,  but  perhaps  there  is  possibly,  no 
knowing  truly,  so  to  say,  anything  about  anything." 

In  such  an  atmosphere  of  thought,  spiritually,  as 
almost  all  people  would  seem  to  be  living  in,  so  thin 
and  hazy  and  uninspiring,  so  dead  and  bewildering,  it 
might  seem  as  though  for  a  theologian,  anything  spir 
itual,  even  though  it  might  really  be  devilish,  ought 
to  be  useful,  as  enabling  him  perhaps  to  find  his  where 
abouts,  or,  as  the  French  say,  "  to  face  the  East " ; 
though  certainly  it  could  not  aid  him  to  do  so,  unless 
by  nature  or  grace  he  might  happen  to  be  ready  for 
the  guidance. 


196  THE   OUTBURST    OF   SPIRITUALISM. 

It  is  sometimes  pronounced  as  though  judicially,  for 
a  verdict,  "  By  acclamation  of  the  public,  Spiritualism 
is  a  thing  which  cannot  be  entertained  for  a  moment." 
But  now  how  is  this  pretended  verdict  ever  supposed 
to  be  made  up  ?  It  is  agreed  upon  by  people  who  do 
not  agree  among  themselves,  even  as  to  the  facts  con 
cerned.  One  party  says,  "  By  the  laws  of  nature  what 
is  called  Spiritualism  is  impossible,  and  therefore  it 
is  not  a  subject  to  be  entertained  for  a  moment." 
Another  party  says,  "  Spiritualism  is  true,  horribly  and 
fearfully ;  and,  therefore,  as  a  subject  of  thought  can 
not  be  entertained  for  a  moment."  And  a  third  party 
says,  "  The  intuitions  of  the  individual  mind  are  for 
the  individual.  And  therefore  also  for  the  public,  as 
far  as  the  public  may  be  complicated  with  his  individ 
uality,  the  intuitions  of  the  individual  are  supreme. 
And  from  outside  whatever  would  conflict  with  the 
supremacy  of  intuition,  may  be  accounted  extraneous, 
intrusive,  and,  like  Spiritualism,  a  thing  not  to  be  en 
tertained  for  a  moment."  And  a  fourth  party  says, 
"  The  Bible  is  enough  for  us,  and  as  we  have  not  time 
for  everything,  Spiritualism  cannot  by  us  be  enter 
tained  for  a  moment."  Strange  parties  these  to  a 
common  verdict,  —  parties  who  disagree  about  the 
facts  concerned,  and  who  yet  are  summed  up  together 
for  apparently  a  unanimous  opinion. 

But  whatever  Spiritualism  may  be,  it  has  had  a  sin 
gular,  instructive  effect,  by  the  remarks  which  it  has 
elicited  from  philosophers  taken  by  surprise ;  from 
"  children  tossed  to  and  fro  and  carried  about  with  every 
wind  of  doctrine " ;  from  self-opinionated  men,  exas 
perated  by  the  rebelliousness  of  facts  against  them; 


THE   OUTBURST   OF   SPIRITUALISM.  197 

and  by  theologians  who,  with  denying  the  possibility  of 
Spiritualism,  have  suddenly  found  themselves  flatly 
opposed  to  the  Bible.  For  both  theology  and  philos 
ophy  have  been  wofully  at  fault  about  Spiritualism ; 
which,  however,  they  never  would  have  been,  only  that 
first  they  had  themselves  become  egregiously  faulty 
by  having  become  too  set  in  doctrine,  and  by  having 
thereby  largely  foregone  the  perception  and  the  love 
of  facts,  as  evolved  by  daily  experience,  or  as  recorded 
in  history. 

While  he  was  a  Jew,  Neander  was  turned  towards 
Christianity  by  the  Pedagogue  of  Plutarch.  This  inci 
dent  was  a  sign  of  the  times,  really.  For  by  an  old  Pa 
gan  was  done  unintentionally,  what  all  the  Christian 
apologists  of  the  day  might  have  attempted  in  vain. 
For,  by  timidity  and  by  the  taint  of  anti-supernatural- 
ism  in  many  places,  Christianity  has  been  so  weakened 
and  attenuated,  as  that  it  cannot  be  spiritually  or  in 
tellectually  attractive,  for  persons  of  intelligence.  And 
indeed  by  a  man  of  spiritual  insight  and  critical  fac 
ulty,  there  is  more  Christianity  to  be  distilled  out  of 
Paganism  itself,  than  some  theologians  seem  able  to  find 
in  all  the  New  Testament. 

Belief  in  a  spiritual  world,  as  the  early  Christians 
felt  it,  has  become  so  much  weakened  by  sickly  intel- 
lectualisms  of  materialistic  kinship,  that  really  what 
the  earliest  disciples  eschewed  might  serve  to-day  as 
a  first  lesson  in  pneumatology,  for  many  Christian 
divines.  Many  believers  in  Spiritualism  are  as  igno 
rant  as  other  people,  and  some  of  them  as  ignorant 
perhaps  as  even  Abyssinian  Christians.  But  the  Spir 
itualism  of  the  most  ignorant  Spiritualist  persuades 


198  THE   OUTBURST   OF   SPIRITUALISM. 

him,  of  his  personal  knowledge,  that  the  demonology 
of  the  New  Testament  was  true. 

As  has  been  stated  before,  Spiritualism  is  not  of  any 
particular  church  or  creed,  any  more  than  a  telescope 
is,  or  an  electric  telegraph,  or  a  badly  kept  post-office, 
or  a  miscellaneous  library.  But  just  as  Paganism 
itself  might  help  to  make  some  Christian  believers  to 
be  better  believers  than  they  are,  so  even  Spiritualism 
might  avail  theologically  for  some  distinguished  di 
vines.  And  truly  such  is  the  spiritual  ignorance  of 
this  highly  scientific  age,  that  "  an  unclean  spirit,"  fit 
only  for  exorcism  in  ancient  times,  would  to-day,  for 
importance,  in  almost  any  theological  school,  be  like 
a  new  revelation  ;  because  a  real,  earnest  belief  in 
the  demoniacs  of  the  New  Testament  would  necessi 
tate  the  formation  of  a  pneumatology  of  the  Scrip 
tures,  for  want  of  which,  to  nearly  all  readers,  the  sen 
tences  of  the  Bible  sometimes  hold  together  but  like 
ropes  of  sand. 

"  And  it  came  to  pass,  as  we  went  to  prayer,  a  cer 
tain  damsel  possessed  with  a  spirit  of  divination  met 
us."  If  anything  to-day  might  make  her  seem,  by 
analogy  or  otherwise,  to  have  been  exactly  what 
the  writer  says,  then  there  would  be  many  an 
honest  doctor  of  divinity,  on  that  knowledge,  who 
would  confess  that  what  little  pneumatology  he  might 
have  was  wrong,  and  also  his  philosophy  of  religion, 
and  also  that  inspiration  was  a  more  real  thing  than 
he  had  ever  thought.  But  now  the  account  of  that 
girl,  with  the  spirit  of  Pytho,  is  to  be  believed  in, 
according  to  Spiritualism,  exactly  as  it  is  written,  and 
not  stupidly,  but  with  a  lively,  intelligent  apprehen- 


THE   OUTBURST   OF   SPIRITUALISM.  199 

sion.  Can  it  be  that  anything  in  the  Scriptures  should 
be  the  plainer  for  Spiritualism  ?  Certainly,  and  no 
great  wonder  either !  How  many  various  understand 
ings  there  are  of  the  New  Testament,  —  Catholic, 
Trinitarian,  Arian,  Unitarian,  Calvinistic,  Arminian, 
and  five,  ten,  twenty  others  !  There  can  only  one  of 
them  be  right  absolutely,  and  probably  there  is  not 
even  one.  Such  various  understandings  of  the  same 
book  argue  the  obfuscated  state  of  theology,  and  ar 
gue  too  the  probability,  that  theologians  differ  from 
one  another  so  variously,  for  something  else  than  the 
letter  of  the  Scriptures ;  and  indeed  because  of  a  some 
thing  which,  more  or  less,  they  all  lack,  and  which 
in  full  strength  with  them  would  be  "the  unity  of 
the  Spirit "  ;  and  because  largely  of  the  general  infec- 
tiousness  of  the  anti-superna,turalism  of  the  times. 
But,  as  has  been  already  remarked,  it  is  such  a  state  of 
things  at  present,  that  even  "  the  unclean  spirits  "  men 
tioned  in  the  New  Testament,  if  made  certain  by  anal 
ogy  or  any  other  way,  and  even  though  of  the  same 
class  as  the  "  dumb  and  deaf  spirit,"  would  yet,  simply 
as  being  known  of,  be  of  great  use  to  wanderers  in 
the  field  of  theology,  bewildered  as  it  now  is. 

Spiritual  rappings  have  been  derided  as  mere  mate 
rialism,  but  only,  however,  by  persons  who  must  have 
been  intensely  materialistic  without  knowing  it ;  be 
cause  an  intelligent  rapping  or  word  by  a  spirit,  suggests 
to  a  spiritually-minded  man,  that  there  must  be  chan 
nels  and  conditions  through  which  a  spirit  can  partially 
return  into  nature,  and  also  that  possibly  there  may 
be  some  human  beings,  who  may  be  spiritually  acted 
upon,  as  well  as  tables.  Then,  too,  it  is  said  that  Spirit- 


200  THE   OUTBURST   OF   SPIRITUALISM. 

ualism  is  worthless  as  a  subject  of  thought,  because  the 
spirits  never  tell  what  was  not  known  before.  But  no 
matter  how  stupidly  it  may  be  done,  if  a  spirit  can  show 
himself  at  all,  he  does  the  greatest  thing  of  the  age,  on 
this  earth ;  for  he  returns  by  a  door  where  theology  has 
said  there  was  no  opening. 

And  now  again  let  it  be  said  that  all  this,  which  may 
seem  novel  and  startling  on  the  first  reading,  is  yet 
nothing  strange,  if  read  in  the  spirit  of  the  Scriptures, 
and  by  the  light  of  history. 

Spiritualism,  dated  even  as  of  Koch'ester  origin,  is  of 
infinite  importance  to  the  state  of  mind  w^hich  denies  its 
possibility.  But  to  the  mind  which  believes  it,  it  may 
be  very  mischievous,  or  at  best  may  minister  to  a  poor, 
low  kind  of  spirituality,  apart  from  the  philosophy  con 
nected  with  it,  and  which  involves  in  its  completeness 
both  modern  science  and  ancient  history,  and  the  ex 
periences  of  almost  every  primitive  tribe ;  and  also  which 
appeals  to  the  New  Testament  as  to  the  discerning  of 
spirits,  and  which  strengthens  itself  as  to  its  positions, 
by  the  history  of  the  Christian  Church,  while  it  was  in 
conflict  with  heathenism. 

In  manner  there  is  a  great  likeness  between  the 
mistakes  respectively  of  some  men  of  science  and  some 
adepts  of  Spiritualism,  —  between  philosophers  with 
telescope  and  microscope,  who  think  that  they  know  all 
about  God,  because  of  their  having  searched  out  some 
of  his  ways,  and  Spiritualists  who  think  that  they  know 
all  about  the  spiritual  universe,  from  having  a  few  spirits 
to  talk  with.  And  in  neither  of  these  classes,  do  the 
professors  remember  the  limitations,  under  which  they 
learn.  For  through  a  telescope  God  is  not  seen,  but 


THE   OUTBURST   OF   SPIRITUALISM.  201 

I 
only  the  divine  way  of  handling  dirt.     And  through 

spiritual  mediums  there  is  communication  with  the 
spiritual  universe,  but  only  as  to  the  first  step  perhaps 
on  an  endless  flight,  and  on  which  step,  also,  it  is,  as 
Henry  More  said  two  hundred  years  ago,  that  often, 
spirits  "  are  very  great  fools  ;  that  there  are  as  great  fools 
in  the  other  world  as  there  are  in  this." 

By  the  necessity  of  things,  the  best  effect  from  the 
spiritual  world  cannot  ordinarily  result  from  such  com 
munications  as  departed  spirits  can  ever  word,  though 
even  they  may  themselves  rank  with  seraphs  in  wis 
dom  ;  but  it  must  come  from  such  thought  as  may  be 
quickened  in  good  minds,  well  prepared  by  education, 
and  by  faith  in  the  Holy  Spirit,  with  a  willingness  to 
wait  for  it  and  to  trust  it.  And  in  the  same  manner, 
however  mysterious  may  be  the  way  of  it,  the  first  true 
thought  of  God  in  any  soul  is  by  revelation  ;  for  it  is 
a  flash  of  light  in  the  mind,  or  it  is  a  sudden  terror 
of  the  conscience,  or  it  may  be  that  it  is  an  infinite 
yearning  of  love.  But  whatever  it  may  really  be,  it 
is  a  something  with  very  different  qualities  from  any 
thing,  which  can  enter  the  mind  through  the  tube  of 
a  telescope,  or  be  started  in  the  understanding  purely 
by  science. 

There  have  been  many  outbursts  on  the  world,  which 
have  been  in  a  general  sense  like  what  is  now  called 
Spiritualism.  Such  was  the  movement  which  began 
with  George  Fox.  Such  also  was  the  commencement 
of  what  is  called  Shakerism,  and  such,  though  in  a 
manner  less  strongly  marked,  were  the  beginnings  of 
the  people  called  Irvingites,  of  some  thirty  years  ago, 
and  also  of  the  Franciscans,  who  are  an  order  of  friars 
9* 


202  THE   OUTBURST   OF   SPIRITUALISM. 

in  the  Catholic  Church.  These,  however,  are  only  in 
stances  out  of  a  multitude  of  such  things,  which  might 
be  cited  at  will,  from  history,  ancient  and  modern,  and 
from  the  experiences  of  the  last  thirty  years. 

Through  George  Fox,  "  the  Spirit "  was  a  rebellion 
against  that  formalism  of  thought,  into  which  English 
men  began  to  fall  soon  after  the  Reformation.  And 
whatever  else  it  may  be,  the  Spiritualism  which  is  com 
monly  supposed  to  have  begun  at  Rochester  is  a  witness 
against  the  materialism  to  which  men  were  inclining 
to  succumb,  under  the  undue  influence  of  science.  And 
indeed  as  to  these  things  there  actually  is  a  philosophy, 
and  which  is  none  the  less  sure  for  being  only  dis 
tantly  akin  to  mineralogy  and  ichthyology. 

There  are  two  sides  to  a  thunder-storm,  —  what  is 
below  and  what  is  above,  as  to  state.  And  similarly, 
there  are  effects  to  be  experienced,  and  even  perhaps 
to  be  incurred,  by  laws  which  act  through  human 
wants,  and  which  may  be  not  unlike  perhaps  to  the 
demands  of  a  decaying  region  below,  on  an  atmosphere 
above,  and  which  get  answered  by  thunder  and  light 
ning  and  sanitary  good. 

Electricity  is  generated  in  more  ways  than  one,  as 
by  the  spontaneity  of  nature,  by  artificial  contrivances, 
and  by  what  may  be  called  accidental  causes.  And  so 
spiritual  fire  may  flash  on  a  man  from  above ;  or  it 
may  be  caught  from  another  like  a  flame ;  or  it  may 
burst  from  some  heart,  like  spontaneous  combustion, 
and  like  the  experience  of  the  Psalmist :  "  My  heart  was 
hot  within  me ;  while  I  was  musing,  the  fire  burned : 
then  spake  I  with  my  tongue." 

The  recent  revival  in   the   north  of  Ireland,  like 


THE   OUTBURST   OF   SPIRITUALISM.  203 

twenty  other  revivals,  was  an  outburst  of  spiritual 
power,  by  which  many  hundreds,  and  even  perhaps 
thousands  of  souls  were  acted  upon  in  a  way,  by 
which  they  manifested  many  things,  in  curious  analogy 
with  the  phenomena  of  Spiritualism.  Why  was  this  ? 
And  if  that  revival  were  a  reality,  and  Spiritualism  be' 
not  an  imposture,  why  were  not  the  two  things  exactly 
alike  as  to  their  effect  ?  Simply  because  the  people 
concerned  were  not  the  same  people  in  the  two  matters, 
and  were  not  looking  in  one  and  the  same  direction. 
Pressure  on  a  man  bodily  may  vary  in  many  ways, 
and  so  may  pressure  on  a  man  spiritually.  And  per 
haps  the  connections  and  susceptibilities  of  a  man 
through  his  spirit  may  be  innumerably  more  than 
through  his  body. 

The  Spirit,  as  it  came  on  Samson,  was  one  thing,  for 
result;  and  as  it  came  upon  Paul,  it  was  another; 
though  to  both  it  was  from  the  same  God  that  the 
visitations  were  made. 

In  an  age  characterized  by  an  infestation  of  "un 
clean  spirits"  exorcism  was  an  appropriate  manifes 
tation  of  power  superhuman  or  extra-natural.  And  if 
to-day  tables  are  tipped,  or  danced  about,  or  made  to 
seem  intelligent,  contrary  to  the  laws  of  nature,  it  may 
be  because  of  what  has  seemed  right  to  spirits,  perhaps 
at  no  great  height  above  this  earth,  and  far  below  that 
step  on  which  the  seraphs  stand  in  ranks  about  the 
throne  of  God.  Or  it  may  be  that  table-tippings  and 
similar  things  are  even  directly  concurrent  with  the 
designs  of  Providence,  and  are  to  be  accounted  as 
means,  whereby  the  minds  of  men  may  be  exorcised 
from  fascination  by  the  laws  of  nature,  which,  though 


204  THE   OUTBURST   OF   SPIRITUALISM. 

true  enough  for  men  as  mere  mortals,  are  not  the  half 
of  the  truth  for  them  as  immortal  souls. 

And  if  through  some  mediums  Spiritualism  should 
seem  to  stand  apart  from  Christianity,  and  therefore  to 
be  strange  and  portentous,  then  let  an  incident  in  the 
Gospels  be  considered ;  and  let  it  be  noticed  how  easily 
the  confidence  of  a  Christian  ought  to  transcend  even 
the  heroism  of  mere  honesty.  "  And  John  answered 
and  said,  Master,  we  saw  one  casting  out  devils  in  thy 
name ;  and  we  forbade  him,  because  he  followeth  not 
with  us.  And  Jesus  said  unto  him,  Forbid  him  not ; 
for  he  that  is  not  against  us  is  for  us." 


THOUGHTS   ON   SPIBITUALISM. 

QPIEITUALISM  is  properly  the  antithesis  of  ma- 
»O  terialism,  and  holds  that  man  is  not  only  an 
animated,  highly  organized  body,  but  also  a  living 
soul,  and  from  his  birth  connected  with  a  world 
spiritual  and  eternal.  And  Spiritualism  technically 
so  called  is  simply  an  affirmation  of  the  foregoing 
statement,  under  the  interest  and  conviction  produced 
by  certain  phenomena  of  the  last  few  years,  and  which 
are  very  curious,  and  apparently  preternatural. 

A  medium  may  be  lowly  and  ignorant,  and  also 
laden  with  every  infirmity  of  the  flesh,  and  yet  can  be 
the  sudden,  utter  confutation  of  materialism,  even  while 
it  is  affecting  to  lean  upon  science,  and  to  deck  itself 
with  the  beauties  of  poetry.  But  some  persons  may 
think  it  strange,  that  instruction  is  to  be  got  from  a 
lowly,  ignorant  medium.  But  surely  the  loftiest  phi 
losophy  should  be  able  to  condescend  to  new  facts,, 
anywhere,  and  at  any  time.  Yet  often  the  phenomena 
of  Spiritualism  have  been  despised  by  persons  who 
yet  gloried,  under  science,  in  having  been  instructed, 
by  mere  stones  and  petrified  bones,  as  to  the  order  of 
creation,  and  as  to  the  look  and  habits  of  creatures, 
animals,  and  vegetables,  as  they  appeared  and  fulfilled 
their  times  and  uses. 

To  the  writer  hereof,  the  phenomena  of  Spiritualism 


206  THOUGHTS   ON   SPIRITUALISM. 

are  useful,  not  so  much  because  of  what  they  are  in 
themselves  as  incidents,  as  because  they  are  evidences 
and  illustrations  as  to  pneumatology.  Through  the 
persons  called  mediums  is  there  really  communication 
with  the  world  of  spirit  ?  That  there  is  intercourse 
to  be  had  with  that  world  is  certain ;  but  as  to  the 
spirit  to  be  talked  with,  there  can  be  no  absolute  cer 
tainty.  Because  of  some  men  at  least,  the  minds  lie 
open  to  the  inspection  of  spirits,  like  the  most  com 
pendious  and  convenient  of  day-books,  so  as  that, 
through  a  medium,  a  spirit  can  read  to  a  man  out  of 
his  own  memory  things  which  he  had  himself  for 
gotten.  And  for  this  and  other  reasons  an  impostor- 
spirit  can  have  a  mortal  at  such  a  disadvantage,  as  that 
actually  for  the  present  writer,  conviction  as  to  the 
identity  of  a  spirit  communicating  through  a  medium, 
would  not  be  wrought  by  even  fifty  times  of  the 
amount  of  evidence,  which  would  suffice  for  identify 
ing  a  person  in  a  court  of  law.  How  is  this  then  ? 
And  what,  then,  does  this  mean  ?  It  means  that  mor 
tals  must  remember  at  least  what  they  are ;  and  that 
as  clay-clad  creatures  they  are  but  dull  and  blind  as 
to  the  spiritual  world  and  its  ways  and  occupants. 
Nor  should  this  be  any  marvel ;  "  for  Satan  himself  is 
transformed  into  an  angel  of  light." 

And  now  the  way  is  open  by  which  the  writer  can 
express  himself  still  more  freely.  From  his  own  ex 
perience,  then,  he  is  satisfied  that  some  spirits  have 
power  to  come  into  the  realm  of  nature  some  little 
way,  and  so  as  to  be  able  to  make  some  signs,  such  as 
the  moving  of  objects,  the  ringing  of  bells,  playing  on 
a  harp,  and  touching  a  person,  and  such  also  as  taking 


THOUGHTS   ON   SPIRITUALISM.  207 

possession  of  the  body  of  some  living  person,  more  or 
less  completely,  and  using  the  hand  for  writing,  and 
the  voice  for  speaking,  and  the  eyes  for  seeing  with, 
after  the  manner  of  a  mesmeric  clairvoyant,  only  much 
more  successfully.  Also  he  knows  that  the  death  of  a 
person  can  be  announced,  and  that  even  also  minute 
peculiar  circumstances  attending  it  can  be  detailed, 
some  days  before  there  could  be  even  a  possibility  of 
such  information  being  to  be  given  by  natural  means. 
Also  the  writer  would  tell,  in  obedience  to  a  sense  of 
duty,  of  his  having  seen  and  examined  and  seen  vanish 
ghost-hands, — hands  of  spirit,  which  had  been  material 
ized  as  to  surface,  at  least,  and  which  had  thereby  been 
made  capable  of  looking  and  doing,  for  a  little  while 
and  to  some  little  purpose,  like  hands  of  flesh  and 
blood. 

There  may  be,  and  perhaps,  all  things  considered, 
there  really  is,  through  a  medium,  sometimes  at  least, 
communication  between  friends  in  this  world  and 
friends  departed ;  though  perhaps  it  may  be  as  rare  as 
the  loving  appearance  of  a  mother  to  a  distant  child, 
whom  she  could  not  but  long  for  as  she  died.  For 
reliable  intercourse  between  a  person  in  this  world  and 
a  particular  spirit  in  the  world  of  spirits,  there  must  be 
a  right  adjustment  of  conditions,  of  which  some  perhaps 
are  known,  but  of  which  many  more  are  not  even  to  be 
conjectured. 

But  now  really,  of  my  vanished  friend,  I  am  sure  as 
to  the  love,  already  and  out  of  my  heart,  beyond  all 
assurance  which  he  could  ever  possibly  give  me,  by 
getting  his  hand  inside  of  the  sphere  of  nature,  and 
making  signs  to  me;  just  as  when  he  was  a  mortal 


208  THOUGHTS   ON  SPIRITUALISM. 

I  credited  him  for  affection,  beyond  what  he  ever 
uttered,  or  what  I  should  have  wished  to  hear  him 
breathe. 

What,  then,  do  these  phenomena  testify  ?  They  wit 
ness  as  to  human  nature  what  it  is  in  itself,  and  what 
it  is  open  to,  through  exposure  or  by  grace.  And  they 
are  proofs  as  to  wrhat  a  world  of  mystery  it  is,  in  which 
men  live.  And  also  they  are  challenges  to  inquiring 
minds. 

People  are  amazed  at  the  phenomena  of  Spiritualism, 
and  astounded  by  them,  and  are  sometimes  even  scep 
tical  as  to  their  possibility ;  and  all  the  while,  really, 
they  are  but  the  accidents  of  our  transcendent  con 
nections,  of  our  being  immortal  though  mortal,  and 
spiritual  while  yet  of  the  earth,  earthy.  Are  they 
therefore  supernal  ?  No.  And  the  proneness  which 
there  is  to  worship  prodigies,  though  they  should  be 
only  such  things  as  haunted  houses  or  wonderful 
dreams,  begins  really  in  the  same  state  of  mind  as 
that  in  a  theologian,  which  defines  a  miracle  as  being 
a  suspension  of  the  laws  of  nature.  By  making  too 
much  of  the  supernatural,  it  may  actually  be  nullified 
as  to  usefulness. 

And  indeed  to  such  a  pass  had  things  come,  on  the 
subject  of  miracles,  among  honest  controversialists,  that 
it  might  seem  as  though  it  had  been  in  the  order  of 
Providence  that  the  phenomena  of  Spiritualism  should 
be  developed,  merely  as  materials  for  pneumatology, 
and  for  the  use  of  competent  observers.  And  by  this, 
it  is  not  necessary  to  suppose  that  Spiritualism  is 
divine,  any  more  than  is  the  cholera  which  enforces 
useful  lessons.  There  are  diseases  of  the  spirit,  which 


THOUGHTS   ON   SPIRITUALISM.  209 

begin  with  God's  mercy,  and  which  end  more  merci 
fully  still.  And  it  would  not  be  without  historical 
analogies,  as  strong  almost  as  demonstration,  if  it  should 
be  said  that  the  Spiritualism  of  to-day,  so  abundant, 
familiar,  extensive,  is  a  reaction,  not  of  the  will  of 
man  of  course,  but  of  the  constitution  of  the  universe, 
against  the  materialism,  which  was  beginning  to  affect 
Christianity  itself  as  an  easy  conquest. 

Spiritualism  is  of  great  interest,  as  restoring  the 
background  of  the  Scriptures,  as  a  picture,  and  as  there 
by  also  making  the  foreground  more  vivid,  if  not  more 
intelligible.  By  Spiritualism  certainty  is  restored  as 
to  the  familiar  spirit  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  as  to 
the  nature  of  the  unclean  spirits  mentioned  in  the  New 
Testament,  as  to  the  history  of  the  woman  of  Endor,  as 
to  the  seductive  nature  of  the  worship  of  Baal,  and  as 
to  the  actual  possession  of  a  certain  damsel  by  a  spirit 
of  Pytho.  And  there  is  no  honest  divine,  among 
Protestants,  but  would  say,  if  those  things  were  made 
certain,  that  then  the  field  of  theology  would  widen 
about  him,  and  have  indistinct  traces  grow  into  plain 
paths,  and  have  also  certain  dark  quarters  in  it  illu 
mined  with  unexpected  light.  And  if  Spiritualism 
can  illustrate  the  manner  in  which  Saul  prophesied 
from  an  evil  spirit,  it  aids  thereby,  some  little  at 
least,  in  making  intelligible  the  manner  in  which 
"  the  Spirit  of  God  came  upon  him ;  and  he  prophe 
sied."  By  Spiritualism,  too,  for  Christian  use,  is 
affirmed  emphatically  and  amended  as  to  translation, 
that  text  which  latterly  has  been  understood  distinctly 
by  very  few  divines.  "  Now  the  Spirit  speaketh  ex 
pressly,  that  in  the  latter  times  some  shall  depart  from 


210  THOUGHTS   ON   SPIRITUALISM. 

the  faith,  giving  heed  to  wandering  spirits,  and  the  in 
structions  of  demons." 

And  if  Nature  for  a  theologian  be  suggestive  of  many 
contrarieties,  so  also  is  that  region  in  the  .spiritual  world 
which  is  nearest  to  the  natural,  and  whence  mostly 
spiritual  approaches  are  made  to  men.  And  just  as  the 
Christian  has  a  faith,  —  which  through  all  her  regions 
Nature  can  only  illustrate  humbly,  and  never  fully  cor 
roborate,  —  so  also  the  faith  of  a  Christian  is  what  can  be 
curiously  indeed,  but  yet  only  partially,  supported  by 
evidences  from  the  spiritual  world,  such  as  can  be  given 
through  tables,  or  even  by  the  hands  and  tongues  of 
men,  as  mediums. 

The  reach  upwards  of  the  human  soul,  the  yearning 
affinity  of  its  faith,  surmounts  the  region  of  nature,  and 
goes  up  beyond  the  level  of  the  world  of  spirits,  and 
aspires  after  what  alone  is  its  proper  object,  —  the  Spirit 
of  God  Most  High. 

There  are  men  of  intellect  at  this  day,  who  would 
readily  believe  in  Moses,  if  merely  they  could  be  satis 
fied  as  to  the  magicians  of  Egypt,  who  yielded  to  him. 
There  have  been  persons,  darkened  in  their  minds  by 
materialism,  who,  with  seeing  merely  what  they  thought 
was  an  apparition,  have  had  their  eyes  so  thoroughly 
and  effectually  opened,  as  that  the  spiritual  world,  and 
all  their  relations  to  it,  were  credible  at  once  and  in 
telligible.  And  there  have  been  travellers  who  have 
returned  from  the  East,  stronger  in  their  faith  as  Chris 
tians,  for  knowing  of  the  preternatural  things,  which 
in  some  places,  the  natives  sometimes  assemble  for, 
at  their  temples.  And  there  have  been  persons  who 
have  been  benefited  by  the  counterpart  of  what  was 


THOUGHTS   ON   SPIRITUALISM.  211 

anciently  accounted  as  dangerous  and  unworthy,  —  "  the 
familiar  spirit."  These  and  many  other  such  things 
may,  under  Heaven,  be  good,  not  so  much  because  of 
what  they  are  in  themselves,  as  because  of  the  lowliness 
of  the  persons  for  whom  they  can  be  lessons.  Many  a 
man  has  thought  that  the  heavens  were  opening  above 
him,  because  of  the  spiritual  phenomena  which  he  had 
experienced.  Whereas  mainly  the  things  were  wonder 
ful  only  to  his  spiritual  ignorance,  only  to  his  never 
having  known  of  matters  with  which,  in  one  age  or 
another,  and  in  one  place  or  another,  the  human  race 
have  always  been  familiar.  Height  above  height ! 
There  are  many  steps  from  an  emmet  to  "  a  familiar 
spirit "  ;  but  more  than  they  countlessly  are  the  steps 
between  the  level  of  "familiar  spirits"  and  the  first 
even  of  those  spiritual  heights,  down  from  which 
comes  "every  good  gift  and  every  perfect  gift." 

What  are  called  the  Spiritualistic  phenomena  are 
never  all  of  them  manifested  through  one  medium. 
Sometimes  a  person  is  a  channel  for  one  marvel,  and 
sometimes  for  two,  three,  four,  and  five  varieties  of  the 
marvellous.  But  of  all  these  marvels,  there  is  scarce 
ly  one  but  reaches  out  into  history  in  all  directions. 
And  there  has  scarcely  ever  been  an  age,  but,  in 
one  place  or  another,  was  familiar  with  two,  three,  or 
more  of  the  prodigies  of  the  present  day.  Of  marvels 
united  to-day  in  the  same  medium,  some  have  been 
evidences  on  which  persons  have  been  canonized  as 
saints  in  the  Church ;  and  others  have  been  proofs  on 
which  poor  wretches  have  been  executed  as  witches  ; 
and  one  at  least,  in  the  same  age,  has  served  as  con 
clusive  testimony  in  Italy  as  to  holiness,  and  in  Eng- 


212  THOUGHTS   ON   SPIRITUALISM. 

land  as  to  deviltry.  It  is  so  as  a  fact,  and  perhaps 
also,  under  Providence,  it  is  vouchsafed  as  a  privilege, 
that  by  the  commonness  of  these  spiritual  phenomena, 
it  is  as  though  the  past  returned  upon  the  present,  and 
offered  itself  again  for  study,  and  the  chance  of  a  bet 
ter  understanding. 

Sometimes  the  phenomena  of  Spiritualism  remind 
one  of  agencies  active  in  the  Scriptures,  and  some 
times  of  narratives  in  the  ancient  classics ;  sometimes 
of  Plotinus,  the  scholarly  heathen  of  fifteen  hundred 
years  ago,  and  sometimes  of  St.  Augustine,  the  great 
father  and  doctor  of  the  Church,  and  continually  also 
of  the  lives  of  paints,  and  the  charges  against  wizards, 
and  of  the  records  of  the  Catholic  Church.  And  in 
deed  there  is  no  general  reader,  with  his  eyes  more 
than  half  open,  who  is  acquainted  with  Spiritualism, 
but  recognizes  the  existence  of  the  common  phenom 
ena  of  Spiritualism,  from  north  to  south,  the  world 
round,  among  all  primitive  nations  and  tribes,  even 
though  described  as  ignorantly  as  things  commonly  are 
by  mere  travellers.  The  angekok  of  the  Esquimaux 
is  exactly  some  good  American  medium.  And  at  the 
other  end  of  the  world,  in  New  Zealand,  are  phenom 
ena  which  correspond  spiritually  with  those  among 
the  Esquimaux.  And  Madagascar  offers  for  examina 
tion  the  same  state  of  things  spiritually,  which  obtains 
among  the  Maoris,  and  among  their  Northern  oppo- 
sites.  Through  spiritual  mediums  to-day  there  are 
concentrated,  within  an  area  of  two  hundred  miles 
round  Boston,  phenomena  which  are  akin  to  the  an 
cient  oracles,  and  to  the  marvels  of  Mohammedanism, 
as  attested  by  Oriental  writers  and  by  European  trav- 


THOUGHTS   ON   SPIRITUALISM.  213 

ellers,  and  to  the  miracles  of  the  Catholic  Church, 
during  the  last  —  during  indeed  all  the  years  since 
the  Catholic  Church  has  been  specially  Roman  Catho 
lic. 

The  Spiritualism  of  to-day  is  nothing  new,  and 
might  even  by  the  Scriptures,  almost,  be  called  as  old 
as  Adam.  What  there  is  new  in  it  is  simply  the 
easiness  with  which  preternatural  phenomena  are  to 
be  got  at.  But  may  not  this  be  in  accordance  with 
that  grand  overruling  law,  by  which  one  change,  and 
another,  and  another  are  like  successive  mile-marks 
along  the  earth,  while  yet  also  under  the  arch  of  the 
heavens  ?  Under  God,  the  material  universe  is  al 
lowed  to  disclose  its  laws  astronomically,  electrically, 
chemically,  optically,  magnetically,  dynamically.  And 
so  might  it  not  then  seem  to  be  by  analogy,  if  con 
currently,  also  the  spiritual  world  should  appear  to 
be  opening  before  mortals  ?  As  a  mortal  within  a 
hundred  years,  how  much  man  has  been  enlightened 
as  to  the  earth,  which  he  lives  in,  and  also  as  to  the 
wide  kindred  of  worlds  which  sparkle  in  the  sky  at 
night!  And  proportionately,  under  Providence,  it 
might  seem  as  though  openings  and  disclosures  might 
be  expected  as  to  the  position  of  man  as  an  immortal 
soul,  among  the  influences,  forces,  and  inhabitants  of 
the  spiritual  universe. 

As  has  been  said  already,  the  Spiritualistic  phe 
nomena  of  to-day  are  simply  easier  of  approach,  and 
more  common  perhaps  than  they  have  ever  been  be 
fore.  And  that  they  are  not  new,  whole  volumes  of 
evidence  might  be  adduced  to  show.  In  the  "Life 
of  a  Chinese  Traveller  in  India,"  the  autobiographer 


214  THOUGHTS  ON   SPIRITUALISM. 

exalts  China,  although  Brahma  had  not  been  born  in 
it,  because  there  "they  know  how  to  make  demons 
and  spirits  appear."  Just  about  two  thousand  years 
ago  there  is  said  to  have  been  in  the  upper  classes  in 
China  a  great  panic  about  death,  and  for  which  the 
writings  of  Confucius  were  no  comfort.  And  upon 
this  ensued  a  great  resort  to  the  schools  of  Tao-tse : 
the  Tao-ists,  at  this  time,  having  become  great  theur- 
gists,  and  even  professing  to  give  prescriptions  for  dis 
ease  from  the  prince  of  demons,  in  his  own  handwrit 
ing.  At  this  present  time  a  spiritual  medium  is  called 
in  China,  "  a  celestial  doctor." 

And  now  let  us  read  evidence  from  as  different  a 
quarter  from  China  as  can  well  be  found.  In  his 
"  Treatise  on  the  Soul,"  Tertullian  gives  what  probably 
was  one  of  his  Montanist  experiences.  Nobody  could 
define  better  than  he  the  difference  between  body  and 
soul,  so  that  when  he  speaks  of  the  soul  as  being  cor 
poreal,  he  is  to  be  understood  as  meaning  that  the  soul 
is  "  a  spiritual  body."  "  To  the  soul  also  we  attribute 
corporeal  outlines,  not  only  from  our  judgment  being 
persuaded  of  its  corporeal  character,  but  also  as  decided 
for  us,  by  grace,  through  revelation.  For  because  we 
recognize  the  gifts  of  the  Spirit,  we  have  been  favored 
with  obtaining  a  prophecy,  after  the  manner  of  St.  John. 
At  this  very  day  there  is  with  us  a  sister  endowed  with 
the  gift  of  revelations,  which  she  receives  in  spiritual 
ecstasy,  during  the  services  of  Sunday.  She  converses 
with  angels,  and  sometimes  even  with  the  Lord,  and 
both  sees  and  hears  holy  things.  She  discerns  the 
heart  of  some  persons,  and  she  prescribes  medicines  to 
those  who  wish.  But  now  according  as  the  Scriptures 


THOUGHTS   ON   SPIRITUALISM.  215 

are  read,  or  Psalms  are  sung,  or  addresses  are  delivered, 
or  prayers  are  offered,  are  supplied  the  subjects  of  her 
visions.  On  one  occasion  we  discussed  something  or 
other  about  the  Soul,  when  as  it  happened  this  sister 
was  in  the  Spirit.  The  people  being  dismissed  at  the 
conclusion  of  the  services,  in  accordance  with  her  custom 
of  telling  me  whatever  she  sees, — for  indeed  these  things 
are  all  most  carefully,  reported,  so  as  that  they  may  be, 
tested,  —  says  she,  "  There  is  shown  to  me  a  human  soul. 
And  truly  the  spirit  was  seen,  but  not  empty,  riot  des 
titute  of  all  qualities,  but  in  such  a  manner  as  that  it 
would  even  allow  itself  to  be  held.  And  it  was  tender, 
lucid,  and  of  an  aerial  color.  And  in  all  respects  it  was 
of  the  human  form."  Tertullian  then  adds  that  if  this 
corporeality  of  the  soul  be  not  credible  from  its  reason 
ableness,  yet  that  it  ought  to  be  so  from  this  vision, 
which  was  not  without  God  as  a  witness,  and  not 
without  some  concurrence  from  that  apostle,  who  is 
the  appropriate  surety  as  to  future  gifts  in  the  Church. 
Bound  Tao-tse  and  Tertullian,  in  regard  to  the  super 
natural,  in  their  respective  eras,  might  easily  be  as 
sembled  a  crowd  of  witnesses,  Socrates  and  Plato, 
Plutarch  and  perhaps  more  than  half  the  people  of 
whom  he  was  the  biographer,  Pliny,  and  it  may  be 
almost  all  the  classical  authors,- nearly  every  father  of 
the  Church,  and  nearly  every  historian  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  during  the  Middle  Ages.  And  if  these  mag 
nates  of  intellect  could  be  assembled  together,  they 
would  be  found  agreed  in  a  state  of  mind,  to  which  at 
once  would  be  credible  such  works  as  Baxter's  "  Cer 
tainty  of  the  World  of  Spirits,"  and  Aubrey's  Miscel 
lanies,  and  Turner's  Providences,  compiled  though  these 


216  THOUGHTS   ON   SPIRITUALISM. 

volumes  largely  are  from  incidents,  such  as  transpire  at 
present  merely  to  be  despised,  or  at  best  to  be  whis 
pered  among  friends  only  in  moments  of  confidence. 
And  now  of  the  state  of  mind  of  all  these  great  think 
ers,  and  as  to  the  preternatural  occurrences  which  they 
wrote  about,  and  as  to  the  modern  marvels,  which  they 
would  have  been  ready  to  credit,  Spiritualism  furnishes 
the  explanation,  being,  as  it  is,  the  key  which  fits  an 
intricate  lock,  and  yielding  as  it  does  to  intelligent  in 
quirers  knowledge  as  to  the  laws  involved  in  portents 
and  prodigies. 

And  now  possibly  somebody  will  exclaim,  "  Then  the 
writer  thinks  Spiritualism  is  divine."  But  now  he 
does  not  think  so,  any  more  than  he  would  think  that 
the  dry  old  bone  would  be  divine,  from  out  of  which, 
as  belonging  to  any  creature  whatever,  it  is  said  that  an 
eminent  naturalist  could  evolve  the  outline  and  habits 
of  the  animal,  when  it  was  alive,  and  therefore  also  the 
general  character  of  the  climate  and  country  in  which 
it  lived.  Learning,  to-day,  reaches  over  a  wider  field 
than  some  people  would  suppose ;  and  even  the  meth 
ods  of  science  are  applicable  in  ways  which  some 
persons  have  never  thought  of.  Earthquakes,  the 
plague,  the  black  death  !  What  is  there  to  be  named, 
as  mischief,  like  what  folly,  like  what  even  fool-hardi 
ness  has  been  'in  theology  ?  In  manners,  there  is  no 
body  so  insolent  as  a  person  of  weak  pretensions  ;  and 
in  theology  there  is  nobody  so  bigoted  as  the  clergy 
man  who  is  too  weak  inwardly  to  digest  the  creed,  which 
outwardly  he  has  had  to  mark  and  learn. 

Many  Christians  are  provoked  by  the  phenomena  of 
Spiritualism,  in  just  the  same  way  as  they  have  been 


THOUGHTS   ON   SPIRITUALISM.  217 

annoyed  sometimes  by  the  marvels  which  have  been 
reported  as  attendant  on.religious  revivals.  A  spiritual 
novelty  troubles  them,  unsettles  them  in  their  minds, 
and  makes  them  feel  as  though  nothing  were  certain. 
And  this  is  because  they  do  not  half  know  themselves. 
For,  man  as  a  spiritual  being,  whether  looking  towards 
heaven  or  towards  hell,  or  towards  some  opening  be 
tween  the  two,  with  earnest  longing,  is  thereby  in  af 
finity  with  the  powers  of  a  spiritual  world,  and  capable 
of  being  quickened  by  them,  as  to  faculties  in  him 
which  ordinarily  are  latent.  But  truly,  if  the  universe 
be  infinite,  it  must  have  myriads  of  qualities ;  and  if 
God  be  the  head  thereof,  and  we  "  heirs  of  God,  and 
joint  heirs  with  Christ,"  we  must  have  senses,  suscep 
tibilities  in  us,  many  more  than  five.  And  it  would 
seem  as  though  such  a  multifarious  nature  might,  now 
and  then,  by  accident  or  the  favor  of  Heaven,  express 
itself  or  be  receptive  in  ways,  which  are  outside  of  the 
utilities  of  ordinary  life :  just  as  some  common  flower 
with  five  petals  might  show  ten  with  cultivation. 

If  tables,  by  the  presence  of  a  medium,  should  simply 
beat  time  to  sacred  music,  millions  of  people  would  be 
lieve  that  the  heavens  did  thereby  vouchsafe  to  show 
their  sympathy  with  men.  But  as  that  tipping  of  the 
table  is  not  for  sacred  music  only,  but  for  anything  else 
almost,  just  as  man  talks  with  man,  it  would  seem  as 
though  something  through  it  might  be  inferred,  more 
important  still,  as  information,  than  even  the  sympathy 
of  the  heavens.  For  of  heavenly  sympathy  with  him, 
there  is  no  poor  wretch  but  ought  to  be  sure,  who  has 
ever  been  inside  of  a  church.  But  if,  through  a  table 
or  anything  else,  there  be  signified  from  outside  of  this 
10 


218  THOUGHTS   ON   SPIRITUALISM. 

visible  world,  a  common  understanding  with  man,  and 
as  though  of  all  kinds  of  persons,  good  and  bad,  wise 
and  silly,  then  is  man  informed,  not  so  much  as  to  the 
heavens,  about  the  favor  of  which  he  ought  already  to 
have  been  sure,  but  as  to  there  being  spirits  and  regions, 
intermediate  between  earth  and  heaven.  And  with 
knowledge  like  this,  and  with  even  a  suspicion  of  it, 
there  are  texts  of  Scripture,  which  deepen  in  meaning, 
as  the  eye  regards  them. 

The  susceptibility  of  man  as  to  the  spiritual  world, 
—  this  is  what  Spiritualism  would  teach.  At  a  re 
ligious  revival,  the  strange  things,  which  sometimes  ac 
company  conversion,  are  akin  to  the  manner  in  which 
the  prophets  were  affected ;  and  that  this  is  so  is  a 
truth,  made  sure  and  evident  to  a  Christian,  by  the 
psychical  laws,  which  are  involved  in  the  phenomena  of 
Spiritualism.  It  is  an  easy  thing  for  a  man  to  say  that, 
as  a  Christian,  he  cares  only  about  the  temper  of  the 
New  Testament,  and  to  keep  himself  in  it.  But  surely 
the  Scriptures  do  not  justify  an  expositor  in  that 
position.  Signs  and  wonders,  or  rather  the  possibility 
and  the  way  of  them,  are  essential  to  the  philosophy 
of  revelation.  Miracles  may  be  no  more,  but  at  least 
they  are  a  proclamation  of  the  channel,  and  proofs  as  to 
an  openness,  by  which  revelation  may  be  made.  They 
may  sometimes  in  the  past  have  been  false  cries  ;  and 
just  as  a  boy  might  alarm  a  neighborhood,  so  miracles, 
may  have  startled  people  in  the  past,  and  may  again  in 
the  future,  though  starting,  as  the  Scriptures  have  fore 
warned,  from  where  there  is  nothing  good  to  follow,  and 
sounding  like  "  0  earth,  earth,  earth,  hear,"  when  really 
there  is  no  word  of  the  Lord  to  ensue.  There  is  a  chan- 


THOUGHTS   ON   SPIRITUALISM.  219 

nel,  by  which  human  beings  are  open  to  the  spiritual 
world,  and  to  effects  from  it.  To  deny  the  worth  of 
what  comes  through  it  may  be  sometimes  right,  and 
be  sometimes,  according  to  the  Scriptures,  even  an'im- 
perative  duty ;  but  to  doubt  the  reality  of  the  channel 
itself  may  be  a  grievous  mistake  and  be  indeed  what 
may  vitiate  a  whole  system  of  theology. 

But  why  should  these  spiritualistic  phenomena  be  so 
much  more  abundant  and  familiar  in  this  age  than 
apparently  at  any  former  period  ?  Why  are  there  so 
many  more  mediums  to-day  than  were  ever  known  be 
fore  ?  It  may  be  because  of  an  occult  something  in 
the  air ;  or  it  may  be  because  of  something,  by  which 
the  bodies  or  the  souls  of  this  generation  are  affected 
unconsciously,  and  perhaps  only  for  a  time,  and  in  a 
manner  which  may  be  disease,  or  even  perhaps  im 
provement.  After  having  agonized  in  spirit,  for  some 
years,  George  Fox  suddenly  found  himself  living  in 
light,  and  also  preternaturally  acquainted  with  the  names 
and  properties  of  all  vegetables  and  minerals.  Also  he 
found  that  he  had  become  a  mouthpiece  for  the  Spirit, 
and  a  man  with  attendance  on  whom  people  were  con 
vulsed  in  their  bodies  and  quickened  in  their  souls,  and 
often  also  made  into  such  channels  of  the  Spirit  as  he 
himself  was.  And  in  the  early  days  of  the  Shakers 
and  the  Irvingites  there  were  many  things  which  were 
curiously  like  the  marvels  which  attended  on  George 
Fox.  And  indeed  in  history  are  many  instances  of 
movements  which  began  from  the  spiritual  world,  and 
which  yet  were  also  characterized  by  the  wisdom  or 
ignorance  or  other  peculiarities  of  the  mortals  through 
whom  first  the  impulses  were  given. 


220  THOUGHTS   ON   SPIRITUALISM. 

If  certain  psychical  channels  were  a  little  enlarged 
with  men  generally,  and  yet  not  more  than  they  have 
often  been,  men  to-day  would  find  themselves,  as  it 
wete,  staggering  to  and  fro,  under  the  bewildering 
intensity  of  influences,  against  the  coming  of  which 
mere  schooling  in  the  order  of  nature  would  prove  to 
have  been  no  preparation  whatever.  And  judging  by 
the  signs  of  the  times,  the  guides  of  public  opinion 
for  keeping  it  both  sober  and  enlightened  will  need  to 
understand  well  the  pneumatology  of  the  Old  Testa 
ment,  and  the  nature  and  reasons  of  the  Jewish  the 
ocracy,  and  also  the  psychology  involved  in  the  New 
Testament,  and  the  nature  of  the  liberty,  and  there 
by  also  of  the  responsibility,  "  wherewith  Christ  hath 
made  us  free." 

It  is  but  walking  in  a  vain  show,  when  a  man  is 
thoughtless  as  to  the  spiritual  world,  to  which  already 
he  belongs,  and  careless  as  to  the  channels  by  which 
he  is  himself  approachable  from  it,  and  heedless  as  to 
its  atmosphere,  which  yet  he  may  sometimes  be  inhal 
ing  as  breath,  without  knowing  of  it. 

According  to  the  phenomena  of  Spiritualism,  the 
constitution  of  human  nature  is  manifestly  still  the 
same,  as  what  the  lawgiving  of  Moses  presupposed, 
and  as  what  the  revelation  of  Jesus  Christ  was  given 
to  meet ;  and  still  the  same  as  it  was  at  Athens, 
Eome,  and  Antioch,  when  the  gospel  began  its  strug 
gle  with  idolatry.  And  it  is  only  with  ascertaining 
the  place  where  the  first  hearers  of  the  gospel  stood 
mentally,  that  one  can  catch  with  full  force  the  words 
which  were  addressed  to  them.  And  anything  to-day 
which  might,  more  or  less,  enable  a  student  to  read  the 


THOUGHTS   ON   SPIRITUALISM.  221 

Epistles  of  Paul,  in  that  state  of  mind  about  the  uni 
verse,  which  Paul  addressed,  would  be  or  should  be  a 
great  blessing.  And  the  Christian  expositor,  who  is 
regardless  of  the  philosophy  which  attaches  to  frhe 
case  of  that  "  certain  damsel  who  had  a  spirit  of 
Pytho,"  and  who  was  exorcised  by  St.  Paul,  would 
seem  to  be  a  little  out  of  the  light  in  which  the  Epis 
tles  of  Paul  ought  to  be  read. 

But  now  a  man  may  live  a  healthy  life  and  a  good 
life,  while  ignorant  of  geography,  and  of  his  relative 
position  among  a  thousand  million  fellow-creatures  on 
this  earth,  and  while  utterly  ignorant  even  of  the 
chemistry  of  his  own  bodily  economy.  And  whatever 
may  be  our  locality  in  the  spiritual  universe,  and 
whether  we  suspect  it  or  not ;  and  whatever  may  be 
the  channels  by  which  spiritually  our  lives  are  sus 
tained  ;  and  whatever  the  mysteries  of  our  spiritual 
constitution ;  and  whatever  also  may  be  the  gifts  of 
the  Spirit  of  which  we  may  fail,  from  causes  con 
nected  with  our  individual  personalities,  or  with  the  era 
which  we  belong  to,  yet  there  is  certain  for  us,  under 
Christ,  a  more  excellent  way  than  any,  which  can  be 
accidentally  or  blindly  missed.  "For  now  we  see 
through  a  glass,  darkly ;  but  then  face  to  face :  now  I 
know  in  part ;  but  then  shall  I  know  even  as  also  I 
am  known.  And  now  abideth  faith,  hope,  charity, 
these  three ;  but  the  greatest  of  these  is  charity." 

But  that  charity  —  what  is  it  ?  It  is  not  simply 
giving  goods  to  feed  the  poor,  nor  is  it  even  a  man's 
willingness  to  let  himself  be  burned  alive.  For  it  is 

O 

what  is  more  than  that,  being,  as  it  is,  what  is   of 
a  man's  inmost  nature.     Because  it  is  that  sympathy 


222  THOUGHTS   ON  SPIRITUALISM. 

which  rejoices  with  them  that  do  rejoice,  and  which 
weeps  with  them  that  weep,  which  believes  all  things 
and  hopes  all  things ;  and  which  therefore  is  that  at 
tractiveness  in  a  man's  spirit,  which  silently  and  im 
perceptibly  procures  for  him  more  of  the  spiritual  use 
of  the  universe  than  possibly  his  intellect  could  ever 
search  out. 

Really  to  a  true  Christian,  and  still  more  to  a  Chris 
tian  as  well  instructed  for  his  day  as  Moses  was,  when 
he  "  was  learned  in  all  the  wisdom  of  the  Egyptians," 
the  phenomena  of  Spiritualism  may  be  interesting,  but 
they  ought  not  to  be  amazing.  And  it  is  just  as  far 
as  a- man  denies  their  possibility,  that  he  may  measure 
his  distance  from  the  pneumatology  of  the  Scriptures  ; 
or,  more  precisely  speaking,  from  that  point  where  the 
apostles  would  have  had  him  sit  down  as  a  heathen 
learner,  and  sit  long  as  a  Christian  hearer,  before  they 
would  have  had  him  stand  up  as  a  teacher.  There  are 
many  persons  who  by  birth  and  happy  education  are 
such,  that  the  actualities  of  Spiritualism  have  nothing 
to  show  them  except  what  they  may  well  believe,  on  a 
mere  hint  almost.  But  then  of  these  born  priests  of 
the  church  there  is  never  one  —  blessed  man  —  that 
"  sitteth  in  the  seat  of  the  scornful."  Alas !  in  unset 
tled,  discordant  times,  like  the  present,  how  large  a 
part  of  our  best  learning  is  simply  getting  to  unlearn  ! 
And  in  regard  to  bad  habits  to  be  broken,  when  life 
becomes  earnest,  how  much  caution  there  has  got  to 
be  about  that  seat  of  the  scorner  !  So  often  the  foun 
tain-head  of  wisdom  in  a  man  is  choked  by  notions 
originating  with  people  wise  in  their  own  conceit,  or 
perhaps  with  blameless  men  helplessly  bewildered  in 


THOUGHTS   ON   SPIRITUALISM.  223 

intricacies  of  thought !  But  when  wisdom  is  not  to 
be  got  from  the  outside  world,  there  is  still  a  way 
through  which  it  is  to  be  gained  by  simplicity  and 
faith.  "I  said,  Days  should  speak," — but  then  so 
often  they  do  not !  "  I  said,  Days  should  speak,  and 
multitude  of  years  should  teach  wisdom.  But  there 
is  a  spirit  in  man,  and  the  inspiration  of  the  Almighty 
giveth  them  understanding." 


A  MIRACLE  DEFINED. 

WHAT  is  a  miracle  ?  It  is  a  fearful  question  to 
start  in  a  theological  library.  For  at  once  that 
library  becomes  a  Babel  of  angry  disputants,  scarcely 
one  of  whom  can  understand  another  or  would  even 
wish  to.  A  miracle  has  been  defined  in  one  way,  and 
another  way,  and  in  so  many  ways,  that  almost,  as  a 
word,  it  has  become  meaningless.  It  is  plain,  that 
commonly  Protestants  in  defining  a  miracle,  have  been 
actuated  by  anti-Catholic  prejudice,  and  not  simply  by 
that  spirit  of  truth,  which  would  guide  into  all  truth. 
And  this  remark  is  true  even  of  some  Protestants, 
who,  for  purity  of  character,  might  very  properly,  as 
Catholics  even,  have  been  sainted.  And  indeed,  al 
ways,  more  or  less  of  allowance  will  have  to  be  made 
for  a  writer,  as  long  as  he  is  connected  with  books, 
and  breathes  vital  air,  and  is  capable  of  being  provoked 
by  his  fellow-creatures. 

As  to  their  reality,  miracles  may  be  tested  by  their 
usefulness  as  to  the  gospel :  miracles  are  credible,  as 
good  evidence,  if  accompanied  by  inspiration  :  miracles 
not  directly  connected  with  doctrine  are  not  worth 
thinking  of:  miracles  are  of  use  in  founding  a  faith, 
but  not  in  preserving  it,  and  therefore  can  never  have 
happened  since  the  earliest  days  of  Christianity: 
miracles  were  acts,  by  which  the  laws  of  nature  were 


A  MIRACLE  DEFINED.  225 

suspended,  and  which  acts  are  made  certain  through 
history,  because  of  considerations  which  are  acquiesced 
in  by  learned  and  honorable  men. 

But  now  all  these  definitions  of  the  miraculous 
were  made  with  a  view  to  the  claims,  controversially, 
of  the  Catholic  Church.  Catholicism,  throughout  the 
wide  regions  which  it  covers,  appropriates  every  marvel 
to  itself,  and  knows  how  to  use  itself  skilfully.  An 
ecstatic,  the  report  of  an  apparition,  a  wonderful 
dream,  healing  in  the  manner  which  is  now  called 
mesmeric,  —  all  such  marvels  as  these  the  Catholic 
Church  can  argue  from,  in  one  way  or  another.  "  See 
the  marvels  which  are  among  us  every  day,  some 
where  or  other.  See  how  these  things  are  a  continua 
tion  of  the  miraculous  powers,-  which  witness  our 
special  descent  from  the  apostles.  Or  else,  see  how 
they  happen  in  attestation  of  our  doctrines  as  to  the 
spiritual  world." 

To  all  this,  practically,  Protestants  have  said :  "  We 
cannot  look,  and  we  will  not  look.  We  should  be 
silly  to  look  at  what  is  impossible.  But  we  will  de 
fine  against  you."  And  so  a  late  English  Dean,  while 
attempting  to  define  a  miracle,  was  evidently  conscious 
of  his  scarlet  hood,  and  of  the  front  which  it  was  de 
sirable  to  show  against  the  Papists,  —  mild,  firm,  and 
justly  dogmatic.  And  in  his  definition  of  the  miracu 
lous,  the  Protestant  minister  of  Paris  evidently  had 
in  view  things  among  Catholics,  the  reality  of  which 
as  facts  he  was  not  willing  to  challenge,  but  the  co 
gency  of  which  as  marvels  it  was  his  object  to  fore 
stall.  Miracles  are  to  be  tested  by  their  necessity  to 
the  gospel,  —  but  this  leaves  it  uncertain  what  the 
10*  o 


226  A   MIRACLE  DEFINED. 

gospel  may  be,  and  what  necessity  may  be;  and  as 
coming  from  Bishop  Warburton,  it  leaves  it  uncertain 
also  whether  those  divines  of  his  age  might  not  by 
him  have  been  accounted  right,  who  argued  that  mira 
cles  ceased  in  the  Church,  with  the  political  establish 
ment  of  Christianity  by  Constantine ;  and  in  whose 
minds,  therefore,  Christianity  was  a  gospel,  which  could 
spare  "  the  manifestation  of  the  Spirit "  as  soon  as  it 
became  strong  in  armies,  old  temples,  and  money. 
And  there  is  the  Scotch  bishop,  Douglass,  who  in  his 
time  and  place  denned  a  miracle  as  being  credible, 
if  accompanied  by  inspiration.  That  definition  may 
have  seemed  good  to  some  people  at  a  particular  time : 
but  to-day  it  appears  as  though  it  would  say  that  a 
miracle  by  itself  is  impossible,  but  that  a  miracle  con 
joined  with  a  mystery  is  fairly  credible. 

At  one  time  a  miracle  was  defined  as  against  the 
doctrinal  claims  of  the  Catholics,  and  at  another  time 
as  against  the  Catholics  and  Gibbon,  and  with  an  eye 
also  to  Hume.  And  to-day  the  acute  Protestant 
theologian,  who  fancies  that  the  Church  is  a  fortress 
of  which  he  is  a  defender,  would  wish  to  define  a 
miracle  so  as  to  stop  off  Catholics,  Spiritualists,  and 
anti-supernaturalists. 

And  now  for  intelligent,  discriminating,  earnest  per 
sons,  what  is  the  outcome  of  all  the  controversies  of 
the  last  hundred  years,  as  to  miracles  ?  It  is  simply, 
at  the  best,  the  hope  that  none  of  the  parties  con 
cerned  may  have  known  what  they  were  talking 
about ;  as  so  few  out  of  the  number  of  mutually  con 
tradictory  opponents  can  possibly  have  been  right, 
even  if  any  were.  And  thus  in  these  latter  times,  on 


A   MIRACLE  DEFINED.  227 

the  subject  of  miracles,  it  would  seem  as  though 
something  had  been  happening  like  what  Paul  was 
thinking  of,  when  he  wrote  of  how  "the  world  by 
wisdom  knew  not  God,"  or  like  the  nullifying  effect 
of  that  inappropriate  learning  with  which  Jesus  re 
proached  the  Jews,  —  "  Thus  have  ye  made  the  com 
mandment  of  God  of  none  effect  by  your  tradition." 

Thoroughly  persuaded  as  to  the  supernatural,  and 
speaking  to  people  who  no  more  doubted  about  it 
than  he  himself  did,  Luther,  in  his  fearless,  unguarded 
way,  once  spoke  of  miracles  as  playthings,  which  the 
Father  Almighty  in  heaven  let  fall  among  his  chil 
dren  on  earth ;  and  Jerome  Huss  also  expressed  him 
self  as  to  miracles  in  the  same  way.  And  they  both 
of  them  did  well  enough,  thinking,  no  doubt,  while 
they  were  speaking,  of  the  priesthood  of  their  time; 
which  commonly  was  eager  to  magnify  every  little 
marvel  of  the  day  or  neighborhood,  for  purposes  more 
exactly  ecclesiastical  than  religious. 

In  the  common  version  of  the  Scriptures,  the  word 
"miracle"  occurs  in  all  the  Old  Testament  but  five 
times ;  and  in  the  Gospel  of  Matthew,  not  once  ;  in 
that  of  Luke,  but  once  only;  and  in  the  Gospel  of 
Mark,  but  twice.  And  of  those  instances  in  Mark, 
one  use  of  the  word  "  miracle  "  is  in  a  passage,  where 
nothing  like  the  word  was  written  by  St.  Mark,  in 
Greek ;  and  the  other  is  in  a  text,  where  more  prop 
erly  it  might  be  translated  as  meaning  "  power  "  or  "  en 
abling  faculty."  But  in  the  Gospel  of  John,  the  word 
"  miracle "  occurs  eleven  times.  How  then  is  this  ? 
It  is  because  the  word  which  is  commonly  translated 
"  miracle  "  means  really  "  a  sign."  In  the  three  first 


228  A   MIRACLE   DEFINED. 

Gospels,  it  is  always  so  translated,  except  on  three  oc 
casions  ;  in  two  of  which  the  original  Greek  is  not 
concerned,  and  in  the  third  of  which,  it  is  the  same 
word  which  otherwise  is  always  translated  as  meaning 
"  a  sign."  But  now,  why  is  there  this  difference  in  the 
rendering  of  a  common  and  important  word  from  the 
Greek  into  English  ?  It  is,  no  doubt,  because  the 
Commissioners  for  translating  the  Scriptures,  under 
the  authority  of  King  James  the  First,  of  England,  at 
their  separate  pieces  of  work,  translated  the  same 
Greek  term,  some  of  them  by  one  word,  and  others  of 
them  by  another. 

What  a  relief  it  seems  to  be  to  learn  this  !  For, 
about  that  word  "  miracle,"  there  has  gathered  such  a 
darkening  of  "  counsel  by  words  without  knowledge  "  ! 
To  theological  students  the  word  is  like  a  football, 
kicked  and  indented  on  the  field  of  controversy, 
amidst  the  shouts  and  passions  of  opposing  parties, 
age  after  age,  till  for  any  exact  use  it  has  been  kicked 
out  of  all  shape. 

Sometimes  in  the  New  Testament  "  signs  and  won 
ders  "  are  mentioned,  but  this  phrase  means  simply 
"  wonderful  signs."  Sometimes  things  of  a  miraculous 
character  are  called  in  the  Greek,  and  are  translated 
into  English,  as  merely  "  works."  But  the  original 
Greek  word,  whether  any  dictionary  knows  it  or  not, 
means  a  peculiar  kind  of  works,  with  a  mighty  spirit 
in  them ;  as  is  evident  by  the  use  of  the  word  among 
the  Neo-Platonists. 

About  things  called  miracles,  then,  the  general  mean 
ing  of  the  phraseology  employed  is  that  of  signifi 
cance.  Miracles  are  signs ;  or  rather  "  signs  "  really 


A   MIRACLE  DEFINED.  229 

and  exactly  are  those  things,  which  are  commonly 
called  miracles.  Indeed,  the  word  "  miracle  "  has  been 
so  miserably  abused  by  controversialists,  that  it  would 
be  well  if  it  could  be  disused  for  fifty  years,  and  some 
synonyme  be  employed  in  its  stead.  But  as  that  thing 
cannot  be,  then  always  let  it  be  remembered  that  in 
the  Scriptures  by  "  miracles  "  are  meant  "  signs,"  or 
manifestations  of  power  originating  outside  of  the 
sphere  of  nature. 

Of  all  the  passages  in  the  Bible,  which  implicate 
the  subject  of  miracles,  it  is  of  course  impossible, 
here,  to  enter  into  an  examination.  But  there  are  cer 
tain  distinct,  grand,  overruling  enunciations  as  to  mira 
cles,  to  which  all  other  texts  must  be  regarded  as  sub 
servient,  for  reasons  as  to  incidental  utterance  or  local 
connection.  And  perhaps  there  is  no  honest  theolo 
gian  but  would  acknowledge  in  a  moment,  that  there 
are  no  texts  in  the  Scriptures  but  actually  are  congru 
ent  with  these  great  direct  statements.  According  to 
the  Gospel  of  John,  Jesus  said  :  "  Believe  me,  that 
I  am  in  the  Father,  and  the  Father  in  me ;  or  else 
believe  me  for  the  very  works'  sake.  Verily,  verily, 
I  say  unto  you,  he  that  believeth  on  me,  the  works 
that  I  do  shall  he  do  also ;  and  greater  works  than 
these  shall  he  do  :  because  I  go  unto  my  Father."  In 
this  passage  are  foretold  the  powers  with  which  the 
disciples  might  find  themselves  invested.  And  in  the 
following  passage  from  the  Gospel  of  Matthew,  it  is 
foretold  that  miracles  may  not  only  be  signs  of  the 
coming  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  but  may  also  herald 
a  movement  from  the  side  of  the  Prince  of  Darkness. 
"  For  there  shall  arise  false  Christs,  and  false  prophets, 


230  A   MIRACLE   DEFINED. 

and  shall  show  great  signs  and  wonders  ;  insomuch 
that,  if  it  were  possible,  they  shall  deceive  the  very 
elect.  Behold  I  have  told  you  before."  Also  St.  Paul 
foreshowed  to  the  Thessalonians  the  working  of  a  mys 
tery  of  iniquity,  through  which  he  would  be  revealed, 
"  whose  coming  is  after  the  working  of  Satan,  with  all 
power  and  signs  and  lying  wonders."  Through  the 
Apocalypse,  St.  John  foresaw  the  struggle  between  the 
gospel  and  hell,  typified  in  various  ways.  "  And  every 
creature  which  is  in  heaven,  and  on  the  earth,  and  under 
the  earth,  and  such  as  are  in  the  sea,  and  all  that  are 
in  them,  heard  I  saying,  Blessing,  and  honor,  and  glory, 
and  power,  be  unto  him  that  sitteth  upon  the  throne, 
and  unto  the  Lamb  for  ever  and  ever.  And  the  four 
beasts  said  Amen.  And  the  four  and  twenty  elders 
fell  down  and  worshipped  him  that  liveth  for  ever  and 
ever."  But  John  saw  also  something  else,  as  he  stood 
upon  the  sand  of  the  sea,  and  beheld  a  beast  come  up 
out  of  the  earth.  "  And  he  doeth  great  wonders,  so 
that  he  maketh  fire  come  down  from  heaven  on  the 
earth,  in  the  sight  of  men,  and  deceiveth  them  that 
dwell  on  the  earth  by  the  means  of  those  miracles 
which  he  had  power  to  do,  in  the  sight  of  the  beast." 
The  early  Christians  then  expected  miracles  from  more 
quarters  than  one,  and  from  elsewhere  than  heaven ; 
and  they  were  prepared  for  the  coming  of  false  proph 
ets  as  well  as  true. 

In  the  Gospel  of  Mark  it  is  promised,  "  These  signs 
shall  follow  them  that  believe ;  in  my  name  shall  they 
cast  out  devils ;  they  shall  speak  with  new  tongues ; 
they  shall  take  up  serpents ;  and  if  they  drink  any 
deadly  thing,  it  shall  not  hurt  them:  they  shall  lay 


A   MIRACLE   DEFINED.  231 

hands  on  the  sick,  and  they  shall  recover."  Signs 
were  to  follow  them  that  believed ;  and  also  were  to 
be  looked  for  from  persons  who  were  worse  than  unbe 
lievers.  For  still  as  written  in  the  Gospel  of  Mark, 
and  still  also  as  the  words  of  Jesus  himself,  it  was 
foretold  that  "  false  Christs  and  false  prophets  shall 
rise,  and  shall  show  signs  and  wonders,  to  seduce,  if 
it  were  possible,  even  the  elect." 

That  through  miracles  there  is  a  manifestation  of 
the  Spirit  St.  Paul  wrote  to  the  Corinthians.  And  to 
the  Thessalonians  he  wrote,  that  power  and  signs 
would  some  time  be,  from  the  working  of  Satan. 

A  miracle  is  a  seal  beyond  a  counterfeit,  which  God 
sets  to  his  word  when  he  speaks.  This  is  a  statement 
which  has  been  agreed  to  by  theologians  of  all  degrees, 
by  bishops  and  priests  and  ministers  and  laymen,  but 
never  by  either  fact  or  the  Scriptures.  The  voice  of 
the  Scriptures,  indeed,  on  the  subject  enunciates  dis 
tinctly  its  meaning  through  the  texts  just  cited,  which 
are  direct,  emphatic,  and  overruling. 

The  field  of  the  miraculous  is  wider  and  more  mys 
terious,  than  might  seem  to  be  supposed  by  some 
people,  and  even  by  many  divines.  According  to  the 
Scriptures,  miracles,  and  of  more  kinds  than  one,  ap 
parently,  a  man  might  work,  and  yet  be  no  Christian. 
And,  as  it  would  seem,  a  man  might  even  work  mira 
cles  in  the  name  of  Christ,  and  possibly  by  even  the 
virtue  of  that  name,  and  yet  truly  himself  not  be  a 
Christian.  "  Many  will  say  to  me  in  that  day,  Lord, 
Lord,  have  we  not  prophesied  in  thy  name  ?  and  in 
thy  name  have  cast  out  devils  ?  and  in  thy  name  done 
many  wonderful  works  ?  And  then  will  I  profess  unto 


232  A   MIRACLE   DEFINED. 

them,  I  never  knew  you :  depart  from  me,  ye  that 
work  iniquity."  That  is  a  warning  for  persons  about 
themselves,  as  channels  for  the  miraculous.  And  now 
let  a  caution  be  considered,  as  to  the  origin  and  laws 
of  marvellous  manifestations.  Because  there  were  go 
ing  about  many  false  prophets,  that  is,  many  persons 
who  were  liable  to  be  inspired  by  bad  spirits,  St.  John, 
in  his  first  Epistle,  gives  what  would  be  a  test,  for 
at  least  the  people  individually  to  whom  he  wrote. 
"  Beloved,  believe  not  every  spirit,  but  try  the  spirits 
whether  they  are  of  God  ;  because  many  false  prophets 
are  gone  out  into  the  world.  Hereby  know  ye  the 
Spirit  of  God :  every  spirit  that  confesseth  that  Jesus 
Christ  is  come  in  the  flesh  is  of  God  ;  and  every  spirit 
that  confesseth  not  that  Jesus  Christ  is  come  in  the 
flesh  is  not  of  God." 

And  now  let  it  be  understood  that,  no  doubt,  these 
false  prophets  appeared  among  the  Christians  as  they 
assembled  themselves  together,  and,  so  to  say,  in 
Church.  And  as  to  the  opening  which  was  possible 
for  them,  let  the  fourteenth  chapter  be  considered 
in  the  first  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians.  In  that 
chapter  is  indicated  remarkably  the  attitude  which 
Christianity  would  have  its  disciples  assume  towards 
spirits  who  might  wish  to  inspire  any  of  them,  and, 
therefore,  also  towards  the  prophets  themselves,  as  to 
what  they  might  have  to  say  on  the  prompting  or  in 
spiration  of  those  spirits.  "  The  spirits  of  the  prophets 
are  subject  to  the  prophets."  The  prophets  are  to  ex 
ercise  their  own  discretion,  as  to  time  at  least,  towards 
the  spirits,  who  would  wish  to  make  them  speak. 
And  with  this  monition  of  St.  Paul  agrees  curiously 


A   MIRACLE   DEFINED.  233 

and  .wonderfully  that  advice  by  St.  John :  "  Beloved, 
believe  not  every  spirit,  but  try  the  spirits  whether 
they  are  of  God." 

By  the  foregoing  texts,  lines  are  marked  on  a  field 
of  thought,  in  which  possibly  some  persons  may  feel 
as  though  they  could  only  move  blindly.  And  yet  some 
time,  perhaps,  it  may  be  to  them  like  a  familiar  re 
gion;  after  they  have  been,  as  St.  Paul  would  say, 
renewed  in  the  spirit  of  their  minds  by,  it  may  be,  a 
new  philosophy  which  they  may  have  taken  to,  or  by 
internal  processes  in  the  spirit  which  they  may  have 
experienced ;  and  as  to  which,  perhaps,  there  is  noth 
ing  to  be  suggested  more  distinctly  than  what  is  to  be 
read  in  the  book  of  Job  :  "  For  God  speaketh  once,  yea 
twice,  yet  man  perceiveth  it  not.  In  a  dream,  in  a 
vision  of  the  night,  when  deep  sleep  falleth  upon  men, 
in  slumberings  upon  the  bed;  then  he  openeth  the 
ears  of  men,  and  sealeth  their  instruction." 

And  truly  the  world  intellectual  and  spiritual  must 
be  alive  with  laws,  powers,  and  agencies,  in  a  thousand 
ways,  as  to  which  we  mortals  can  know  nothing  what 
ever,  but  of  which  for  importance  and  nearness  we 
may  conjecture  something,  from  the  manner  in  which 
the  outer  material  world  has  revealed  itself  to  eyes, 
fitted  with  telescope  and  microscope.  In  the  fourteenth 
chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians  there  is  a 
glimpse  of  what  the  souls  of  men  are  capable  of  mani 
festing  as  to  prophecy,  and  as  to  the  discovery  of  the 
secrets  of  the  heart,  and  as  to  speech  in  unknown 
tongues  of  men  and,  it  may  be,  of  angels.  But  it  was 
the  doctrine  of  Paul,  that  than  all  such  marvels  as 
these,  charity  is  far  better  evidence  as  to  the  opera- 


234  A   MIRACLE   DEFINED. 

tion  of  the  Spirit.  By  these  remarks  there  is  implied 
another  spiritual  world,  than  what  some  theologians 
suppose ;  but  it  is  not,  therefore,  the  less  certain  or 
Scriptural. 

And  now  again,  what  is  a  miracle  ?  Of  all  the 
words  then  in  the  Scriptures,  so  translated,  and  guided 
also  by  the  connections  in  which  the  words  are  used, 
the  general  sense  of  "  miracle  "  would  seem  to  be  "  a 
sign."  And  a  sign  would  seem  to  be  of  various  de 
grees  and  even  varieties  of  significance,  and  even  per 
haps  to  be  more  or  less  contingent  on  human  or  earthly 
conditions.  That  wonderful  scene  of  the  Transfigura 
tion  was  not  for  all  Jerusalem,  nor  even  for  all  the 
twelve  apostles.  But  it  is  written :  "  Jesus  taketh 
Peter,  James,  and  John  his  brother,  and  bringeth  them 
up  into  a  high  mountain  apart,  and  was  transfigured 
before  them ;  and  his  face  did  shine  as  the  sun,  and 
his  raiment  w^as  white  as  the  light,  and  behold,  there 
appeared  unto  them  Moses  and  Elias  talking  with 
him."  But  in  his  own  country,  \vhere  people  asked 
in  reference  to  his  miraculous  power,  as  to  how  it 
was,  and  why  it  could  be,  and  whether  he  was  not  the 
carpenter  ?  "  Jesus  said  unto  them,  A  prophet  is  not 
without  honor,  but  in  his  own  country,  and  among  his 
own  kin,  and  in  his  own  house.  And  he  could  there 
do  no  mighty  work,  save  that  he  laid  his  hands  upon 
a  few  sick  folk,  arid  healed  them.  And  he  marvelled 
because  of  their  unbelief." 

Of  there  having  been  a  varying  estimate  as  to 
miracles,  among  the  multitude  at  least,  this  text 
would  seem  to  show,  "  And  many  of  the  people  be 
lieved  on  him  and  said,  When  Christ  cometh,  will  he 


A   MIRACLE   DEFINED.  235 

do  more  miracles  -  than  these  which  this  man  hath 
done  ? "  And  that  ultimately  miracles,  as  to  signifi 
cance,  have  to  be  understood  by  doctrine,  that  is, 
through  the  human  reason  quickened  and  enlightened 
by  the  Holy  Spirit,  is  evident  even  from  the  position 
which  Jesus  Christ  assumed  in  argument.  "  Then  was 
brought  unto  him  one  possessed  with  a  devil,  blind 
and  dumb ;  and  he  healed  him,  insomuch  that  the 
blind  and  dumb  both  spake  and  saw.  And  all  the 
people  were  amazed,  and  said,  Is  not  this  the  son  of 
David  ?  But  when  the  Pharisees  heard  it,  they  said, 
This  fellow  doth  not  cast  out  devils,  but  by  Beelzebub, 
the  prince  of  the  devils.  And  Jesus  knew  their 
thoughts,  and  said  unto  them,  Every  kingdom  divided 
against  itself  is  brought  to  desolation  ;  and  every  city 
or  house  divided  against  itself  shall  not  stand :  and 
if  Satan  cast  out  Satan,  he  is  divided  against  himself: 
how  shall  then  his  kingdom  stand  ? " 

And  so,  there  is  recorded  another  argument  by  Jesus, 
made  apparently  with  reference  to  what  he  was  him 
self,  and  as  to  what  the  world  about  him  was,  with  his 
being  in  it,  and  its  being  thereby  alive  with  miraculous 
possibilities  :  "  Ye  hypocrites,  ye  can  discern  the  face 
of  the  sky  and  of  the  earth ;  but  how  is  it  that  ye  do 
not  discern  this  time  ?  Yea,  and  why  even  of  your 
selves  judge  ye  not  what  is  right  ? "  And  for  the 
estimate  of  miracles  as  connected  with  the  apostles,  it 
would  seem  as  though  these  words  might  be  fully  ap 
plicable,  as  implying  that  the  miracles  of  the  apostles 
were  like  those  of  Jesus  as  to  significance  :  "  The  disci 
ple  is  not  above  his  master,  nor  the  servant  above  his 
lord.  It  is  enough  for  the  disciple  that  he  be  as  his 


236  A   MIRACLE   DEFINED. 

master,  and  the  servant  as  his  lord.  If  they  have 
called  the  master  of  the  house  Beelzebub,  how  much 
more  shall  they  call  them  of  his  household  ? " 

As  to  the  significance  by  authority,  which  miracles 
claim  in  the  New  Testament,  perhaps  the  preceding 
texts  are  sufficient.  And  as  to  the  authority  of  mira 
cles  in  the  Old  Testament,  perhaps  Maimonides,  the 
Rabbi,  may  be  a  good  teacher;  and  what  he  says 
agrees  altogether  with  the  Gospels,  and  with  the  doc 
trine  of  St.  Paul.  "  We  do  not  believe  every  one  who 
works  a  sign  or  a  wonder  to  be  a  prophet,  but  only  the 
man  whom  we  have  known  from  the  beginning  to  be  fit 
for  prophecy,  —  to  have  raised  himself,  by  his  wisdom 
and  his  works,  above  all  the  men  of  his  age,  and  to 
have  walked  in  holiness  and  separation.  Afterwards, 
if  he  come  and  do  a  sign  or  a  wonder,  and  say  that 
God  hath  sent  him,  the  command  is  to  hear  him,  as  it 
is  said, '  Unto  him  shall  ye  hearken.'  " 

The  general  sense,  then,  of  the  word  "  miracle  "  in 
the  Bible  is  "  a  sign  "  ;  as  in  Exodus,  where  it  is  said 
to  Moses  by  the  Lord,  "  And  it  shall  come  to  pass,  if 
they  will  not  believe  thee,  neither  hearken  to  the  voice 
of  the  first  sign,  that  they  will  believe  the  voice  of 
the  latter  sign  " ;  and  as  in  the  account  of  the  expul 
sion  of  the  traders  from  the  court  of  the  temple, 
when  "  answered  the  Jews  and  said  unto  him,  What 
sign  showest  thou  unto  us,  seeing  thou  doest  these 
things  ? "  and  as  on  other  occasion,  when  "  certain  of 
the  scribes  and  of  the  Pharisees  answered,  saying, 
Master,  we  would  see  a  sign  from  thee." 

The  word  "  sign "  is  a  general  word,  though  more 
precise  than  the  word  "  miracle."  For  a  sign  of  mi- 


A   MIRACLE  DEFINED.  237 

raculous  origin  means  at  least  something  of  an  un 
earthly  origin,  intended  for  the  notice  of  earthly  peo 
ple.  There  is,  however,  no  word  in  the  Bible  which 
distinguishes  as  to  the  marvellous,  between  what  might 
herald  an  angel,  or  such  a  startle  as  might  be  given  by 
Satan,  or  by  any  one  of  those  spirits  or  agencies,  for 
which  in  the  aggregate,  perhaps,  the  word  "  Satan  "  is 
a  synonyme  in  the  Scriptures.  In  the  Apocalypse  were 
foreseen  "  the  spirits  of  demons  working  miracles." 
But  the  word  which  is  here  translated  as  "  miracle  "  is 
the  same  word  "  sign  "  which  was  used  by  Jesus  when 
he  said,  "  The  powers  of  the  heavens  shall  be  shaken ; 
and  then  shall  appear  the  sign  of  the  Son  of  man  in 
heaven."  And  according  to  the  prediction  of  Jesus, 
"  signs  "  were  to  attend  upon  those  who  believed  in 
him,  and  also  "  signs "  were  to  be  shown  by  false 
Christs  and  false  prophets. 

And  now  let  us  notice  the  tone,  simply,  in  which 
miracles  or  signs  are  spoken  of,  and  we  shall  feel 
perhaps  that  miracles,  or  signs  and  wonders,  are  signs 
simply,  and  not  absolute  proofs.  In  the  Gospel  of 
Matthew  it  is  written,  "  Then  certain  of  the  scribes  and 
of  the  Pharisees  answered,  saying,  Master,  we  would 
see  a  sign  from  thee.  But  he  answered,  and  said  unto 
them,  An  evil  and  adulterous  generation  seeketh  after 
a  sign  ;  and  there  shall  no  sign  be  given  to  it,  but  the 
sign  of  the  prophet  Jonas."  And  so  by  implication, 
at  least,  and  actually  by  the  philosophy  of  the  Scrip 
tures  as  to  miracles,  the  argument  of  Jesus  is,  that 
miracles  were  not  for  them  —  Scribes  and  Pharisees 
—  because  of  their  souls  having  been  averse  to  his 
preaching.  "  The  men  of  Nineveh  shall  rise  in  judg- 


238  A  MIRACLE   DEFINED. 

ment  with  this  generation,  and  shall  condemn  it :  be 
cause  they  repented  at  the  preaching  of  Jonas ;  and 
behold  a  greater  than  Jonas  is  here." 

In  the  minds  of  the  Pharisees,  the  cure  of  the  man 
born  blind  scarcely  counterbalanced  by  its  miraculous- 
ness  the  prejudice  which  was  created  by  its  having 
been  wrought  on  the  Sabbath.  "  They  brought  to  the 
Pharisees  him  that  aforetime  was  blind.  And  it 
was  the  Sabbath  day  when  Jesus  made  the  clay,  and 
opened  his  eyes.  Then  again  also  the  Pharisees  asked 
him  how  he  had  received  his  sight.  He  said  unto 
them,  He  put  clay  upon  mine  eyes ;  and  I  washed 
and  do  see.  Therefore  said  some  of  the  Pharisees, 
This  man  is  not  of  God,  because  he  keepeth  not  the 
Sabbath  day.  Others  said,  How  can  a  man  that  is  a 
sinner  do  such  miracles  ?  And  there  was  a  division 
among  them."  According  to  some  theologians,  every 
miracle  is  the  direct  act  of  the  Most  High  God.  And 
thus  a  miracle  to-day  should  be  like  the  sound  of  a 
trumpet,  in  advance  of  legions  of  angels  and  of  heav 
enly  hosts,  and  of  power  almighty.  But  it  was  not  so 
that  miracles  were  regarded  at  Jerusalem,  by  the  chief 
people.  After  Lazarus  had  been  raised  from  the  dead, 
"  Then  many  of  the  Jews  which  came  to  Mary,  and 
had  seen  the  things  which  Jesus  did,  believed  on 
him.  But  some  of  them  went  their  way  to  the  Phari 
sees,  and  told  them  what  things  Jesus  had  done.  Then 
gathered  the  chief  priests  and  the  Pharisees  a  council, 
and  said,  What  do  we  ?  for  this  man  doeth  many  mir 
acles.  If  we  let  him  thus  alone,  all  men  will  believe 
on  him ;  and  the  Eomans  shall  come  and  take  away 
both  our  place  and  nation." 


A  MIRACLE  DEFINED.  239 

To  the  apostles  Jesus  said, "  Believe  me  that  I  am  in 
the  Father,  and  the  Father  in  me  ;  or  else  believe  me 
for  the  very  works'  sake."  This  was  as  though  his  own 
sweet  words  should  have  been  more  persuasive  than 
miracles.  In  his  own  country,  "When  the  Sabbath 
day  was  come,  he  began  to  teach  in  the  synagogue : 
and  many  hearing  him  were  astonished,  saying,  From 
whence  hath  this  man  these  things  ?  and  what  wisdom 
is  this  which  is  given  unto  him,  that  even  such  mighty 
works  are  wrought  by  his  hands  ? "  The  mighty  works, 
however,  even  though  thoroughly  credited,  were  not 
supposed  to  be  for  significance,  what  should  have 
stopped  the  rudeness  of  the  further  questioning,  "Is 
not  this  the  carpenter,  the  son  of  Mary,  the  brother  of 
James  and  John,  and  of  Juda,  and  of  Simon  ?  and  are 
not  his  sisters  here  with  us  ?  And  they  were  offended 
at  him." 

By  contrast  with  the  preceding  occurs  to  the  mind 
the  account  of  the  poor  woman,  who  said,  "  If  I  may 
touch  but  his  clothes  I  shall  be  whole."  From  her 
case  there  is  a  little  more  to  be  learned  as  to  miracles. 
"  She  felt  in  her  body  that  she  was  healed  of  that 
plague " ;  and  she  was  cured  as  to  her  body  through 
her  soul,  or  rather  through  that  state  of  her  soul  which 
was  like  a  sensation  of  Christ,  as  "  she  touched  his  gar 
ment."  After  this,  "  the  woman  fearing  and  trembling, 
knowing  what  was  done  in  her,  came  and  fell  down  be 
fore  him,  and  told  him  all  the  truth.  And  he  said  unto 
her,  Daughter,  thy  faith  hath  made  thee  whole  ;  go  in 
peace,  and  be  whole  of  thy  plague."  At  Capernaum, 
when  the  heathen  centurion  told  his  tale  ;  and  "  when 
Jesus  heard  it,  he  marvelled,  and  said  to  them  that  fol- 


240  A  MIRACLE   DEFINED. 

lowed,  Verily,  I  say  unto  you,  I  have  not  found  so  great 
faith,  no,  not  in  Israel."  And  then,  as  showing  that  the 
spiritual  state  of  the  "  man  under  authority  "  was  con 
senting  to  the  miracle  or  concerned  with  it,  "Jesus 
said  unto  the  centurion,  Go  thy  way ;  and  as  thou  hast 
believed,  so  be  it  done  unto  thee.  And  his  servant 
was  healed  in  the  selfsame  hour." 

Of  the  soul  there  is  a  state  or  an  attitude,  by  which 
it  is  "  right  before  God."  It  does  not  follow,  however, 
even  under  Christ,  that  every  spirit  right  before  God 
should  be  a  channel  of  miracles,  whether  few  or  many. 
For,  all  the  conditions  concerned  with  miracles  are  not 
known.  As  a  right  state  of  the  body  is  favorable  to 
right  thinking,  so  there  may  be  some  nervous  condition 
or  magnetic  peculiarity,  which  may  favor  the  soul's 
expression  of  itself  by  miracles.  And  with  the  free 
manifestation  of  miracles,  it  would  seem  as  though 
not  only  the  spiritual  state  of  individuals  might  be 
concerned,  but  also  the  state  of  the  community  of 
which  they  may  be  members. 

Also,  religiously  all  times  are  not  the  same.  One  age 
is  a  time  of  fervor  and  trust,  wherein  man  can  walk 
with  God  gladly  and  joyously,  though  clouds  and  dark 
ness  be  about  him.  Another  a^e  is  a  season  of  intel- 

O 

lectual  curiosity,  when  men  fancy  that  they  can  "  by 
searching  find  out  God "  and  that  indeed  they  ought 
to  learn  about  him  before  trusting  to  him.  But  really 
that  picture  of  the  Transfiguration  by  Raphael,  at  Rome, 
has  never  been  seen  through  a  microscope,  and  never 
will  be,  even  though  every  bit  of  the  canvas  should  be 
passed  across  the  field  of  the  best  possible  instrument. 
A  believer  can  walk  with  God  in  spirit,  but  not  the 


A  MIRACLE   DEFINED.  241 

man  who  thinks  that  before  starting  he  ought  to  find  out 
God  by  analysis  and  logic,  even  though  not  unto  perfec 
tion.  And  in  many  other  ways,  too,  may  men  disqual 
ify  themselves  spiritually  for  things  which  they  would 
attempt.  Often  in  the  chambers  of  his  soul  a  man  will 
deliberately  close  the  skylights  and  the  higher  windows, 
and  try  to  see  only  by  such  light  as  is  nearest  to  the 
basement ;  and  he  thinks,  in  so  doing,  that  he  is  keep 
ing  close  to  nature.  But  he  makes  the  same  blunder 
as  that  which  would  search  out  the  beauty  and  mean 
ing  of  Eaphael's  great  picture  with  a  microscope. 
Dogs  are  excellent  within  the  range  of  their  faculties, 
—  the  mastiff,  the  setter,  the  Newfoundland ;  but  as 
something  to  be  judged  upon,  "  Give  not  that  which  is 
holy  unto  the  dogs." 

And  not  only  can  a  man  not  judge  who  is  no  judge ; 
but  under  no  outpouring,  whether  Pentecostal  or  any 
other,  can  a  man  receive  who  has  no  receptiveness. 
The  Pharisees  and  Sadducees  were  not  often  the  peo 
ple,  through  whom  there  was  any  manifestation  of  the 
Spirit.  In  the  time  of  Jesus  it  does  not  appear  that 
ever  a  Pharisee  was  healed ;  or  that  there  was  a  Phari 
see  among  the  seventy  sent  out  by  Christ,  who  found 
themselves  endowed  with  miraculous  power.  And 
commonly  the  Pharisees  would  seem  to  have  been 
spiteful  about  the  miracles,  even  when  they  could  not 
but  acknowledge  them,  as  being  real.  The  seventy 
had  returned  with  joy  at  the  effect  of  their  new  pow 
ers  in  the  places  where  they  had  been,  saying,  "  Lord, 
even  the  devils  are  subject  unto  us  through  thy  name." 
At  this,  and  thereby  also  at  the  state  of  mind  which 
had  been  thus  found  existing  abroad,  "  Jesus  rejoiced 
11  p 


242  A  MIRACLE  DEFINED. 

in  spirit,  and  said,  I  thank  thee,  0  Father,  Lord  of 
heaven  and  earth,  that  thou  hast  hid  these  things  from 
the  wise  and  prudent,  and  hast  revealed  them  unto 
babes  :  even  so,  Father ;  for  so  it  seemed  good  in  thy 
sight." 

It  has  been  quoted  already,  but  it  is  of  that  signifi 
cance  that  it  may  well  be  cited  again,  that  when  Jesus 
was  in  his  own  country,  "  he  could  there  do  no  mighty 
work,"  but  only  heal  a  few  people,  by  laying  his  hands 
on  them.  There  was  then  possible  a  state  of  feeling 
in  a  place,  at  a  certain  time,  which  could  hinder  the 
working  of  miracles  even  by  Jesus  Christ. 

And  as  what  may  result  from  spiritual  recognition 
between  persons,  and  from  trust  and  faith,  the  miracle 
at  Lystra  is  an  instance ;  at  which  city  there  was  a 
poor  sufferer,  who  happened  to  be  within  the  reach 
of  Paul's  voice  as  he  preached.  "The  same  heard 
Paul  speak :  who  steadfastly  beholding  him,  and  per 
ceiving  that  he  had  faith  to  be  healed,  said  with  a  loud 
voice,  Stand  upright  on  thy  feet.  And  he  leaped  and 
walked."  By  this  it  would  seem  to  be  implied  that 
for  miracles  in  curing  there  was  necessary,  not  only  a 
power  ready  to  heal,  but  also  a  state  of  expectancy, 
receptiveness,  and  faith  on  the  side  of  the  sufferers. 

"  Draw  nigh  to  God,  and  he  will  draw  nigh  to  you," 
says  St.  James  in  his  Epistle  ;  and  if  there  be  an  age, 
by  the  spirit  of  which  men  generally  are  withdrawn 
from  God,  then  necessarily  the  manifestations  of  the 
Spirit  must  become  very  few,  and  be  what  can  be 
credited  very  faintly  by  most  persons.  And  this  must 
be,  notwithstanding  what  concurrently  may  be  the  ex 
periences  of  individual  Christians,  who  perhaps  may  be 


A   MIRACLE   DEFINED.  243 

peculiar  as  to  constitution,  or  happy  in  some  way,  as  to 
education,  associates,  or  neighborhood. 

From  Jesus,  after  he  had  risen,  and  before  he  had 
ascended,  the  apostles  received  as  an  answer  to  a  ques 
tion,  "  It  is  not  for  you  to  know  the  times  or  the  sea 
sons,  which  the  Father  hath  put  in  his  own  power." 
And  that  there  is  a  varying  distance,  in  some  sense, 
between  mortals  and  their  God,  is  implied  in  the 
words  of  Peter,  in  his  address  at  the  temple,  in  Solo 
mon's  porch,  when  he  said  to  the  people  who  had  come 
running  together  on  account  of  a  miracle,  "  Eepent  ye 
therefore  and  be  converted,  that  your  sins  may  be 
blotted  out,"  against  what  is  in  the  future,  "  when  the 
times  of  refreshing  shall  come  from  the  presence  of 
the  Lord." 

And  as  showing  the  manner  in  which  the  human 
spirit  may  be  in  connection  with  powers  outside  of 
itself  indeed,  and  which  yet  are  not  foreign  to  its  na 
ture,  let  the  words  of  Jesus,  spoken  to  his  immediate 
disciples,  be  noticed ;  for  though  they  were  not  ful 
filled  in  the  age  when  they  were  uttered,  and  are  not 
likely  to  be  at  this  present  time,  yet  they  hold  good 
for  all  who  are,  or  who  ever  shall  be  in  him,  "  that  is 
true,  even  in  his  son  Jesus  Christ."  It  is  the  philoso 
phy  of  faith,  which  is  stated  in  this  merely  occasional 
remark,  "  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  if  ye  have  faith  as  a 
grain  of  mustard-seed,  ye  shall  say  unto  this  moun 
tain,  Remove  hence  to  yonder  place ;  and  it  shall  re 
move  ;  and  nothing  shall  be  impossible  unto  you." 

And  now  what  is  faith  ?  It  is  the  confidence  of 
moral  persuasion,  —  it  is  the  sense  of  what  must  be, 
because  of  what  ought  to  be :  it  is  the  state  of  a  soul 


244  A   MIRACLE    DEFINED. 

which  is  open  towards  God,  and  therefore  receptive  of 
the  Holy  Ghost ;  and  which  thereby  also  is  capable  of 
becoming  prophetic,  and  of  blossoming  with  Christian 
graces,  like  gifts,  and  of  developing  latent  powers,  in  a 
superhuman  way,  for  teaching  and  healing,  and  for 
spiritual  perception,  and  communion.  Faith  is  the 
instinct  of  a  soul,  as  to  its  affinities  ;  and  about  which, 
as  to  reliability,  the  blind  life  of  a  bee  in  the  hive 
ought  to  be  hint  enough. 

There  is  an  instinct  of  faith  in  us,  or  a  something, 
which  for  want  of  words,  cannot  perhaps  be  better  de 
fined,  but  which  men  are  free  to  trust  or  not,  because 
of  the  manner  in  which  they  are  created  to  live,  or  are 
let  live,  or  at  least  are  free  to  feel. 

"  Faith  as  a  grain  of  mustard-seed  ! "  There  is  a 
whole  volume  of  spiritual  philosophy  in  these  words, 
though  only  dimly  discernible  by  the  writer  hereof,  and 
perhaps  by  most  other  persons,  at  present.  In  a  para 
ble  Jesus  spoke  of  "  a  grain  of  mustard-seed,  which, 
when  it  is  sown  in  the  earth,  is  less  than  all  the  seeds 
that  be  in  the  earth ;  but  when  it  is  sown,  it  groweth 
up  and  becometh  greater  than  all  herbs,  and  shooteth 
out  great  branches  ;  so  that  the  fowls  of  the  air  may 
lodge  under  the  shadow  of  it."  And  just  as  in  a  mus 
tard-seed  there  is  the  possibility  of  a  tree,  so  in  every 
man  of  faith  there  is  what  might  remove  mountains,  not 
perhaps  any  day  in  any  century,  but  in  Pentecostal 
times.  That  our  souls  begin  from  God,  and  live  by 
him,  is  Christian  doctrine  ;  and  it  was  the  belief  of  the 
best  of  the  heathen,  as  St.  Paul  showed  to  the  men  of 
Athens,  when  he  reminded  them  of  the  words  of  one 
of  their  poets,  "  For  we  are  also  his  offspring."  And 


A   MIRACLE   DEFINED.  245 

if  only  by  faith  our  souls  were  as  natural  as  mustard- 
seeds,  or  as  pliant  to  super-agency,  they  would  have 
their  various  faculties  supplied  and  filled  from  a  foun 
tain-head  eternal  of  wisdom,  power,  and  goodness,  and 
have  all  such  desires,  as  faithful  souls  can  have,  easily 
and  abundantly  satisfied. 

And  now  again  what  is  a  miracle  for  us  human  be 
ings,  according  to  the  Scriptures  ?  But  as  preliminary 
to  the  answer,  let  it  be  remembered  that  our  souls  and 
all  souls  are  living  in  God,  as  indeed,  in  some  way,  all 
things  must  be ;  and  not  merely  such  intelligences  as 
Moses  and  Socrates  were,  but  also  bees  busy  in  the 
hive,  and  devils  even  while  they  believe  and  tremble. 

According  to  the  Scriptures,  then,  miracles  are 
"  signs  "  of  activity  in  a  moulding  and  pervading  world 
of  spirit ;  and  which  were  appealed  to,  by  the  Jews,  as 
proofs  sometimes  of  greater  and  sometimes  of  less  sig 
nificance,  in  connection  with  the  persons  through  whom 
they  w^ere  wrought.  Also,  concurrently  with  the  fore 
going  statement,  and  as  enlarging  it,  it  is  to  be  remem 
bered,  according  to  the  Scriptures,  through  the  world 
of  spirit  which  is  round  us,  that  demons,  like  any 
other  spirits,  may  possibly  make  "  signs,"  and  may  try 
even  to  be  taken  for  angels  of  light. 

And  thus,  according  to  a  Pindaric  phrase,  by  many 
windings  of  thought,  or  as  Swedenborg  might  say,  by 
a  spiral  progress,  we  have  arrived  at  a  point,  perhaps  a 
little  higher  on  the  scale  of  information,  but  still  with 
the  same  view,  whence  Ealph  Cudworth  looked  out,  as 
a  student  of  the  Intellectual  System  of  the  Universe, 
when  he  wrote,  after  citing  Pagan  as  well  as  Christian 
miracles  and  prophecies,  "  All  these  phenomena  of 


246  A   MIRACLE   DEFINED. 

apparitions,  witchcraft,  possessions,  and  prophecies,  do 
evince  that  spirits,  angels,  or  demons,  though  invisible 
to  us,  are  no  fancies,  but  real  and  substantial  inhabi 
tants  of  the  world ;  which  favors  not  the  atheistic  hy 
pothesis  :  but  some  of  them,  as  the  higher  kinds  of 
miracles  and  predictions,  do  also  immediately  enforce 
the  acknowledgment  of  a  Deity,  a  Being  superior  to 
nature,  which  therefore  can  check  and  control  it,  and 
which,  comprehending  the  whole,  foreknows  the  most 
remote,  distant,  and  contingent  event."  Also,  though  it 
be  the  same  thing  in  other  words,  it  is  yet  worthy  of 
being  read  again,  "  Though  all  miracles,  promiscuously, 
do  not  immediately  prove  the  existence  of  God,  nor 
confirm  a  prophet,  or  whatsoever  doctrine ;  yet  do  all 
of  them  evince  that  there  is  a  rank  of  invisible,  under 
standing  beings,  superior  to  men,  which  atheists  com-  ' 
monly  deny." 

Those  last  words  as  to  an  atheist  remind  one  of  a 
fact,  which  by  a  late  writer  was  stated  very  vividly, 
that  in  modern  times  there  has  nothing  been  debated 
or  proposed  in  the  realms  of  thought  or  imagination, 
as  to  theology,  or  metaphysics,  or  social  organization, 
but  was  agitated  in  England  during  the  times  of  the 
Commonwealth.  And  from  that  furnace-like  condi 
tion,  in  which  mind  once  was  in  England,  no  doubt 
there  has  resulted  in  its  inhabitants  that  something, 
which  is  a  part,  at  least,  of  what  by  foreigners  is 
sometimes  called  sobriety,  and  sometimes  slowness  of 
thought. 

Ealph  Cudworth,  Richard  Baxter,  John  Owen,  Hen 
ry  More,  John  Smith  and  their  compeers,  may  be  sup 
posed  by  some  critics  to  be  out  of  date  for  citation  as 


A  MIRACLE  DEFINED.  247 

authorities  on  philosophical  or  religious  subjects,  as 
having  been  persons  innocent  of  a  thought  of  Panthe 
ism,  and  too  simple  and  professional,  ever  to  have 
known  what  hostile  scepticism  might  have  had  to  say 
for  itself,  in  their  time.  But  than  this  there  is  not  a 
greater  mistake  to  be  made  in  literature  by  anybody. 
For  the  foregoing  are  all  men  of  great  names  ;  and  the 
age  in  which  they  lived  was  not  a  time  for  cheap  repu 
tations.  And,  indeed,  for  spiritual  insight  and  learn 
ing,  and  for  experience  from  a  wide  knowledge  of  men 
and  collision  with  them,  there  are  no  twelve  men,  to 
day,  to  be  found  in  all  England,  or  throughout  the 
United  States,  who  could  be  fairly  compared  as  a  jury- 
on  a  theological  question,  with  such  men  as  were 
known  to  Henry  More  and  Eichard  Baxter.  And 
truly,  at  this  time,  the  direct  affinities  of  the  best 
thinkers  are  with  the  scholars  of  two  hundred  years 
ago,  rather  than  with  those  who  wrote  English  under 
Queen  Anne,  or  who  loved  to  be  Addisonian  while 
George  the  Third  was  king.  By  searching  upwards 
and  around  with  the  telescope,  and  downwards  with 
the  microscope,  into  the  magnitudes  and  affinities 
which  are  latent  in  every  atom,  science  confirms  the 
doctrine  of  the  Unity  of  God.  But  that  doctrine  had 
been  a  primary  truth  of  revelation  for  thousands  of 
years  before  those  optical  helps  were  invented.  And, 
indeed,  beyond  its  assent  as  to  the  doctrine  of  the 
Unity  of  the  Godhead,  arid  those  illustrations  which 
it  furnishes  of  truths  which  are  at  least  as  old  as  the 
Old  Testament,  science  has  yielded  nothing  new  what 
ever  for  the  uses  or  the  consideration  of  theology. 
With  the  discovery  of  the  law  of  gravitation  Newton 
did  not  find  himself  changed  theologically ;  and  to  the 


248  A   MIRACLE  DEFINED. 

end  of  his  life  he  believed  profoundly  in  a  world  ex 
tra-human  and  spiritual,  and  in  prophecy,  as  an  effect 
from  it. 

And  now,  after  having  striven  to  view  this  subject 
of  miracles,  as  it  exists  in  the  Scriptures,  by  light 
from  every  quarter  which  is  open  towards"  him,  the 
present  writer  would  suggest  the  following  proposi 
tions. 

I.  A  miracle  is  a  "  sign "  that  men  are  vitally  con 
nected  with  a  sphere,  which  is  wider  than  what  is 
commonly  called  "  nature,"  and  which  transcends  it. 

II.  A  miracle  is  a  "sign"   as   to  individuals   and 
sometimes  as  to  communities,  of  an  increase  in  sensi 
bility  as  to  influence  from  the  spiritual  world. 

III.  A  miracle   is  a  "sign"   that   in   the   persons 
through  whom  it  is  wrought,  there  is  a  state  of  open 
ness  towards  the  spiritual  world,  through  which,  more 
or  less  effectually,  they  may  be  receptive  of  spiritual 
suggestions,  prophetic    and   doctrinal:  which  sugges 
tions,  however,  like  the  miracle  itself,  may  possibly  be 
not  from  above. 

IV.  A  miracle  of  magnitude  and  beneficence  would 
seem  to  create  a  high  presumption,  and  to  be  a  "  sign  " 
as  to  the  goodness,  and  therefore  as  to  the  reliability 
of  the  person  through  whom  it  is  wrought. 

V.  A  miracle  or  sign  is  a  possibility  of  the  present 
day,  and  from  quarters  both  good  and  bad. 

VI.  As  to  the  significance  of  miracles,  or  as  to  signs 
given  or  coming  from  the  spiritual  world,  men  ordina 
rily  may  judge  of  themselves,  and  always  they  may 
learn  from  the  Holy  Spirit ;  the  monitions  of  which  will 
never  fail,  while  there  are  two  or  three  disciples  to 
gather  together  truly,  in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ. 


MIEACLES  AS   SIGNS. 


BY  anti-supernaturalists  it  is  an  argument  against 
the  probability  of  miracles  ever  having  happened, 
that  the  force  of  them  as  to  authority,  and  therefore  also 
as  to  credibility,  must  depend  on  the  mental  state  of  the 
person  witnessing  them,  or  hearing  of  them.  But  this 
is  no  new  discovery ;  for  it  is  implied  in  the  Scriptures 
continually.  And  St.  Paul,  in  his  First  Epistle  to  the 
Corinthians,  discriminates  thus  as  to  miracles  which 
might  even  happen  together  in  the  church,  "  Tongues 
are  for  a  sign,  not  to  them  that  believe,  but  to  them 
that  believe  not :  but  prophesying  serveth  not  for  them 
that  believe  not,  but  for  them  which  believe."  And 
in  the  first  chapter  of  the  same  epistle,  St.  Paul  would 
say  that  there  are  conditions  as  to  preaching  Christ, 
under  which  "  signs  "  are  not  thought  of,  and  wisdom 
of  the  Greek  kind  is  not  minded,  "  For  after  that  in 
the  wisdom  of  God,  the  world  by  wisdom  knew  not 
God,  it  pleased  God  by  the  foolishness  of  preaching  to 
save  them  that  believe.  For  the  Jews  require  a  sign, 
and  the  Greeks  seek  after  wisdom :  but  we  preach 
Christ  crucified,  unto  the  Jews  a  stumbling-block,  and 
unto  the  Greeks  foolishness  ;  but  unto  them  which  are 
called,  both  Jews  and  Greeks,  Christ  the  power  of 
God,  and  the  wisdom  of  God." 

Miracles  dependent  for  their  meaning  on  the  persons 
11* 


250  MIRACLES  AS   SIGNS. 

attending  to  them,  —  of  course  they  must  be,  and 
always  have  been.  For,  outside  of  what  is  mathemati 
cal,  hardly  anything  can  be  uttered  but  varies  as  to 
force,  with  the  various  minds  which  receive  it,  and  es 
pecially  on  such  subjects  as  are  moral  and  religious. 

It  has  been  said,  as  though  by  the  complaisance  of 
lofty  intellects,  and  as  though  by  concession  to  the 
ways  of  Providence,  that  a  belief  in  miracles  may  have 
had  its  use  in  times  of  darkness,  and  so  may  have 
served  a  good  end,  though  itself  being  utterly  baseless. 
But  a  sentiment  like  that,  instead  of  being  welcomed, 
is  eschewed  by  anything  like  "  the  truth  as  it  is  in 
Jesus,"  and  by  every  honest  atom  in  the  universe. 

It  is  true  that  a  miracle  may  be  more  striking  one 
day  than  another,  and  in  one  age  than  another,  just  as 
it  might  be  with  one  person  more  than  with  another. 
But  what  of  that  ?  From  even  the  same  occurrence 
do  all  the  spectators  receive  uniformly  the  same  im 
pression  ?  What  sermon  ever  was  exactly  the  same 
thing,  to  even  only  two  persons  in  a  congregation  ?  A 
miracle  might  be  seen  and  acknowledged  by  twenty 
witnesses  ;  and  some  of  them  would  thank  God  for  "  a 
sign  and  wonder  "  ;  and  some  others  would  say  that  it 
was  very  curious,  and  worth  thinking  about :  while  still 
more,  by  their  utilitarian  remarks,  would  show  them 
selves  to  be  of  the  same  mind  with  the  people,  whom 
Jesus  once  answered,  when  he  said,  "  Verily,  verily,  I 
say  unto  you,  ye  seek  me,  not  because  ye  saw  the  mir 
acles,  but  because  ye  did  eat  of  the  loaves  and  were 
filled." 

Never  were  miracles  understood  in  the  Catholic 
Church,  as  being  of  the  same  significance  as  in  the 


MIRACLES   AS   SIGNS.  251 

Evidences  of  Eeligion,  by  Joseph  Priestley.  And 
before  Moses  addressed  Pharoah,  it  was  anticipated 
that  among  the  Egyptians  one  sign  might  be  more  co 
gent  than  another,  and  two  signs  be  more  persuasive 
than  one.  "  And  it  shall  come  to  pass,  if  they  will 
not  believe  thee,  neither  hearken  to  the  voice  of  the 
first  sign,  that  they  will  believe  the  voice  of  the  latter 
sign."  Is  a  miracle,  then,  really  the  less  probable  as 
an  occurrence,  or  is  its  significance  the  less  certain  be 
cause  the  minds  of  men,  as  to  the  "  sign  and  wonder  " 
may  not  be  uniform,  age  after  age  ? 

It  has  been  said  that  the  day  for  miracles  is  past,  and 
that  whatever  use  there  may  have  been  in  them  is  worn 
out.  This,  however,  is  the  word  of  a  writer  who  ac 
tually  never  knew  what  a  miracle  was,  and  who  there 
fore  could  never  have  known  properly  about  its  signifi 
cance  and  use.  For  really  and  truly,  there  never  was 
a  time  when  a  miracle  was  as  much  itself,  as  it  is  to 
day.  There  never  has  been  a  period  when  a  miracle 
could  have  been  as  suggestive  arid  as  instructive  as  it 
might  be  at  present.  There  never  has  been  an  age 
when  a  miracle  could  have  meant  as  much  as  it  does 
at  this  moment.  And  never,  in  all  time  past,  could  a 
miracle  have  been  as  much  of  "  a  sign  and  wonder  "  as 
it  might  be,  and  should  be,  at  this  present  time.  For, 
as  is  commonly  and  scientifically  supposed,  the  Order 
of  Nature  is  clearly  and  distinctly  against  anything 
like  a  miracle ;  and  those  powers  of  omnipotence  and 
omniscience,  by  which  the  realm  of  nature  is  pervaded, 
are  rightly  regarded  as  guaranties  against  the  possibil 
ity  of  a  miracle  by  accident.  And  so,  in  these  en 
lightened  days,  the  humblest  miracle,  or  work,  or  sign, 


252  MIRACLES  AS  SIGNS. 

on  which  formerly  only  a  minor  stress  would  have 
been  laid,  is  arrayed  in  a  portentousness  of  meaning, 
with  which  anciently  it  was  never  accredited,  even  by 
those  who  most  heartily  believed  it.  And  thus,  like  a 
remark  which  has  been  already  made,  for  such  spiritual 
discernment,  as  most  persons  have  at  present,  or  are 
likely  to  have  before  they  die,  "  the  unclean  spirit,"  so 
often  mentioned  in  the  Bible,  would,  as  to  the  consti 
tution  of  the  spiritual  universe,  be  as  great  a  sign  as 
they  are  capable  of  receiving.  And  yet  from  the 
Spirit  of  God  an  abundance  of  other  "  signs  "  are  wait 
ing  on  us  all.  But  as  to  these  invisible  signs  we  ex 
perience  nothing,  and  can  scarcely  even  think  or  feel 
anything,  because  of  our  living,  for  some  reason,  in  a 
state  as  to  the  miraculous,  somewhat  like  that  of  those 
Jews  to  whom  Jesus  said,  "  Perceive  ye  not  yet,  neither 
understand  ?  have  ye  your  heart  yet  hardened  ?  Hav 
ing  eyes,  see  ye  not  ?  and  having  ears,  hear  ye  not  ?  " 

Certainly  a  miracle  is  not  of  the  same  meaning  in 
every  age :  but  it  is  not  always  because  of  its  seeming 
to  diminish  in  significance.  King  Saul  believed  that 
Ahimelech  the  priest  had  "inquired  of  God,"  at  the 
request  of  David.  At  this  day  it  seems,  that  what 
ever  the  answer  might  be,  which  even  an  enemy  might 
get  as  an  oracle  from  God,  as  though  certainly,  we  all 
of  us  could  only  say,  "  The  Lord's  will  be  done  ! "  But 
Saul  did  not  feel  so  :  but  said,  "  Thou  shalt  surely  die, 
Ahimelech,  thou  and  all  of  thy  father's  house."  This 
seems  to  be  like  insanity ;  but  things  have  been  en 
acted  and  done  in  Europe  within  the  last  century,  from 
a  state  of  mind  not  as  intense  indeed  as  that  of  Saul, 
but  like  it.  And  indeed,  history  may  well  make  the 


MIRACLES  AS   SIGNS.  253 

most  intelligent  man  fear  for  himself,  as  to  what  non 
sense  or  wickedness  he  may  some  time  find  himself 
committed  to,  for  what  may  have  seemed  to  him  to  be 
good  reasons  drawn  from  theology.  But  in  connection 
with  Saul,  let  us  read  further.  "  And  the  king  said  to 
Doeg,  Turn  thou  and  fall  upon  the  priests.  And  Doeg 
the  Edomite  turned,  and  he  fell  upon  the  priests,  and 
slew  on  that  day  fourscore  and  five  persons  that  did 
wear  a  linen  ephod."  Kill  a  man  who  could  "  inquire 
of  the  Lord,"  —  kill  a  man  who  was  like  the  mouth 
piece  of  God  !  This  would  seem  to  be  like  anything 
but  a  belief  in  miracles.  Yet  actually,  it  was  because 
he  was  believed  to  be  a  man  of  miracle,  that  Ahimelech 
the  priest  was  killed. 

"  A  man  of  God  "  had  wrought  great  miracles  at  the 
altar  in  Bethel,  and  an  old  prophet  wished  to  detain 
him,  notwithstanding  that  he  pleaded  "  the  word  of  the 
Lord "  to  the  contrary.  "  He  said  unto  him,  I  am  a 
prophet  also  as  thou  art ;  and  an  angel  spake  unto  me 
by  the  word  of  the  Lord,  saying,  Bring  him  back  with 
thee  into  thine  house,  that  he  may  eat  bread  and  drink 
water.  But  he  lied  unto  him."  Certainly  the  force  of 
a  miracle  varies  with  different  persons,  and  from  one 
age  perhaps  to  another.  But  the  anti-supernaturalists 
of  this  age  would  probably  think  much  more  of  a 
miracle  than  would  seem  to  have  been  felt  by  an 
ancient  Israelite,  who  not  only  believed  in  the  possi 
bility  of  miracles,  but  who  also  was  himself  known  as 
"  an  old  prophet,"  and  who  indeed  was  himself  again, 
just  about  to  be  made  prophetic.  In  the  book  of  the 
Acts  of  the  Apostles,  it  is  to  be  read,  "And  when 
Simon  saw  that  through  laying  on  of  the  apostles' 


254  MIRACLES  AS   SIGNS. 

hands,  the  Holy  Ghost  was  given,  he  offered  them 
money,  saying,  Give  me  also  this  power,  that  on  whom 
soever  I  lay  hands,  he  may  receive  the  Holy  Ghost. 
But  Peter  said  unto  him,  Thy  money  perish  with  thee, 
because  thou  hast  thought  that  the  gift  of  God  may 
be  purchased  with  money."  But  here  some  one  may 
say,  "  By  the  manner  in  which  miracles  seem  to  have 
been  regarded  anciently,  and  sometimes  perhaps  by 
those  even,  who  knew  best  about  them,  they  may  not 
really  have  been  what  I  have  thought  they  were."  For 
which  the  answer  is,  "  Perhaps  not :  but  they  are  not 
therefore  the  less  true,  nor  the  less  Scriptural,  nor  the 
less  significant,  nor  yet  the  less  reliable  as  being  the 
spiritual  mortar  with  which  are  cemented  together 
those  human  experiences  which  constitute  the  Bible, 
and  which  make  it  be  like  the  visible  gateway  and 
gate,  which  open  into  glory,  and  into  the  "  house  not 
made  with  hands,  eternal  in  the  heavens." 

Miracles  not  as  wonderful  to-day  as  they  were  be 
fore  the  days  of  science  began,  —  this  is  what  has 
been  sometimes  said,  and  what  has  been  still  oftener 
felt.  It  is  true,  that  we  are  not  as  the  Egyptians  were, 
nor  yet  as  the  Jews  were,  scientifically.  But  neither 
yet  are  we  as  they  were,  geographically,  or  historically ; 
and  yet  vitally  we  are  very  like  them.  Be  it  so,  that 
there  is  knowledge  now  about  what  are  called  the  laws 
of  nature ;  and  that  even  some  of  the  laws  can  be  in 
dicated,  through  the  use  of  which  some  miracles  may 
perhaps  have  been  wrought.  What  then ;  does  that 
abolish  the  meaning  of  a  miracle,  as  a  sign  ?  Or  does 
that  properly  end  our  human  wonder,  as  to  what  a 
miracle  may  mean,  or  as  to  who  may  be  the  primary 


MIRACLES   AS   SIGNS.  255 

cause  of  it  ?  It  might  as  well  be  supposed  that  with 
learning  the  Greek  language,  as  Plato  wrote  it,  that  his 
wisdom  would  be  found  to  evaporate.  The  radicals 
and  inflections  of  a  language  are  not  thought,  but  only 
a  channel  for  the  expression  of  thought.  And  for  such 
a  "  miracle  "  as  is  a  "  sign,"  the  laws  of  nature,  when 
they  are  concerned,  are  but  the  channels  of  will,  power, 
and  intelligence,  combined  in  an  agency  which  is  in 
visible,  and  not  fleshly,  mortal,  nor  human.  When  a 
message  reaches  a  person  by  telegraph,  electricity  is 
not  the  whole  explanation  of  it ;  for  the  significance 
of  the  message  began  actually  with  the  person  who 
from  a  distance  caused  the  sign,  and  sent  the  commu 
nication.  Science  does  but  make  a  miracle  to  be  more 
distinctly  "  a  sign." 

It  is  pleaded  as  an  axiom  by  some  theologians,  "  If 
we  can  prove  the  miracles,  we  have  proved  Christian 
ity."  What  a  sense  of  pertinency  these  theologians 
must  have ;  and  what  a  sense,  too,  of  moral  fitness ! 
For  almost  they  might  as  well  say,  "  Learn  well  the 
multiplication-table,  and  you  will  certainly  feel  the 
genius  of  Raphael."  Before  any  one  can  prove  the 
truth  of  Christianity  by  the  miracles  of  the  Scriptures, 
he  must  be  able  to  show  the  spiritual  philosophy  of 
miracles,  and  thereby  be  able  to  make  people  discern, 
for  themselves,  the  possibility  and  probability  of  mira 
cles  having  really  happened.  But  this  is  a  thing  which 
is  never  thought  of  by  the  man,  who  thinks  that  he 
can  create  a  belief  in  Christianity,  by  an  historical 
argument  as  to  miracles.  "The  Bible  is  the  word 
of  God,  and  the  miracles  in  it  are  the  seals  of  the 
Almighty  ;  and  I  can  show  that  always  those  miracles 


256  MIRACLES  AS  SIGNS. 

have  been  believed ;  and  if  we  believe  them,  then  we 
are  Christians."  A  very  simple  argument  this  is, 
certainly  ;  but  somehow,  the  end  of  it,  even  when  it  is 
best  managed,  is  acquiescence,  simply,  and  not  convic 
tion,  and  of  course,  not  fervent  conviction.  As  indeed 
how  should  it  be  ?  For  actually  the  argument,  as  it  is 
usually  conducted,  presupposes  a  state  of  mind,  un 
fortunately  not  unlike  that  of  the  Israelites  under 
Moses.  Says  Lightfoot  in  his  Horae  Hebraic?e  et  Tal- 
mudicae,  "  They  went  under  four  or  five  miracles :  as 
the  appearing  of  the  cloud  of  glory,  the  raining  of 
manna,  the  flowing  of  the  rock,  or  the  waters  at  Horeb, 
the  continual  newness  of  their  clothes,  and  the  untired- 
ness  of  their  feet.  Yet  did  they  forget  and  were  con 
tinually  repining  against  him,  that  did  all  these  won 
ders  for  them." 

There  is  a  curious  narrative  connected  with  the  Jews 
while  in  the  desert,  which  shows  that  miracles  may  be 
profoundly  believed  by  some  persons,  and  yet  to  no 
good  purpose ;  because  of  their  state  of  mind,  being 
itself  akin  to  idolatry,  as  being  blind  and  sensual. 
For  the  sins  of  the  people,  there  was  amongst  them  a 
plague  of  fiery  serpents.  But  afterwards,  "  The  Lord 
said  unto  Moses,  Make  thee  a  fiery  serpent,  and  set  it 
upon  a  pole :  and  it  shall  come  to  pass  that  every  one 
that  is  bitten,  when  he  looketh  upon  it,  shall  live." 
This  was  a  miracle,  which  was  of  a  kind,  by  which 
there  was  likely  to  be  a  deep  and  permanent  impres 
sion  made.  And  so  in  the  Second  Book  of  Kings,  at 
a  date  which  would  seem  to  be  seven  hundred  years 
later  than  that  miracle  in  the  desert,  it  is  to  be  read 
that  King  Hezekiah  "removed  the  high  places,  and 


MIRACLES  AS  SIGNS.  257 

brake  the  images,  and  cut  down  the  groves,  and  brake 
in  pieces  the  brazen  serpent  that  Moses  had  made ;  for 
unto  those  days  the  children  of  Israel  did  burn  incense 
to  it.  And  he  called  it  Nehushtan,"  that  is,  a  piece  of 
brass.  And  at  the  present  day,  there  are  persons,  high 
and  low  in  intelligence,  and  some  of  whom  would  look 
grandly,  if  arrayed  in  their  worldly  circumstances,  who 
inwardly  are  of  that  old  Jewish  company  in  the  des 
ert,  and  who,  but  for  the  spirit  of  the  time,  could 
almost  more  easily  worship  a  "  sign  "  rather  than  God, 
who  reveals  himself  through  it. 

It  has  been  said,  rather  arrogantly,  that  with  the 
growth  of  intellect  miracles  will  cease  to  interest  men. 
What,  then,  with  the  growth  of  intellect,  will  men  be 
curious  about  ?  Because  oysters,  intellectually,  will 
not  serve  forever,  nor  monads,  nor  yet  gorillas.  And 
it  would  seem,  indeed,  as  though  miracles  might  serve 
men  as  subjects  for  inquiry,  and  as  suggestions  for 
speculation,  even  after  the  earth  shall  have  yielded 
up  every  one  of  its  hidden  secrets. 

With  the  growth  of  intellect,  some  men  have  fancied 
that  the  basis  of  morals,  and  also  the  sanction,  is  sim 
ply  utility.  And  it  has  happened  even  that  "the 
world  by  wisdom  knew  not  God."  At  present,  of  that 
wrorld,  to  which  men  are  related  by  bodily  organiza 
tion,  the  curiosities  and  laws  draw  an  interest  dispro 
portionately  great  in  comparison  with  what  is  felt  as 
to  those  laws  and  wonders,  which  are  connected  with 
man  as  "  a  living  soul."  This,  however,  is  only  by  an 
accident  of  the  moment,  and  because  of  the  weak 
ness  of  the  human  intellect;  which,  though  it  be 
only  of  yesterday,  is  yet  confronted  simultaneously 

Q 


258  MIRACLES  AS  SIGNS. 

with  the  necessities  of  the  passing  hour,  and  with 
problems  akin  to  the  infinite  and  eternal.  There  may 
have  been  times  when  miracles  were  senselessly  mag 
nified  ;  and  it  would  seem  as  though  there  might  also 
be  a  time  when  they  may  be  as  absurdly  neglected. 

But  yet  miracles,  and  even  of  the  far  distant  past, 
will  interest  man  as  long  as  he  is  a  creature  of  aspira 
tion  and  hope,  because  of  their  being  evidences  of  a 
spiritual  world,  and  proofs  also,  that  man  spiritually  is 
enriched  with  receptiveness  against  "  when  the  times 
of  refreshing  shall  come  from  the  presence  of  the 
Lord,"  whether  in  this  world  or  the  next.  For  indeed 
there  is  not  a  miracle  but  is  an  argument  as  to  our  hu 
man  nature,  for  what  it  is  in  its  faculties,  and  what  its 
connections  must  be  with  a  world  invisible,  of  angels 
and  agencies,  which  it  is  a  glory  to  think  of. 

Miracles  effete  as  to  meaning,  —  what  a  strange  no 
tion  !  Because  that  they  never  can  be,  while  men  can 
wonder  and  reverence,  and  believe  in  the  certainty  of 
what  must  transcend  their  own  pettiness,  and  dust, 
and  ignorance. 

Miracles  effete  as  to  meaning  !  That  they  never  can 
become  while  men  are  human,  mortals  who  have  not 
yet  become  immortal,  and  clear  of  the  fleshly  veil, 
which  separates  between  us  newly  created  spirits,  and 
that  world  eternal,  immortal,  invisible,  for  which  we 
are  predestined,  but  which  yet  "  flesh  and  blood  cannot 
inherit." 

Miracles  effete  as  to  meaning  !  That  they  can  never 
be ;  while  men  can  have  their  thoughts  started  afresh, 
from  time  to  time,  as  to  who  they  themselves  may  be, 
or  what,  relatively,  their  place  in  the  universe  may  be, 


MIRACLES   AS   SIGNS.  259 

under  that  Supremacy  of  Power  which  is  called  God, 
and  as  among  "  all  things  created,  that  are  in  heaven, 
and  that  are  in  earth,  visible,  and  invisible,  whether 
they  be  thrones,  or  dominions,  or  principalities,  or 
powers." 

Miracles  effete  as  to  meaning  !  That  can  never  be, 
while  the  human  soul  is  in  its  inmost  self,  prophetic, 
and  capable  at  times  of  being  "  taught  of  God,"  and 
of  showing  graces,  which  have  been  quickened  from 
above. 

Miracles  effete  as  to  meaning  !  That  can  never  be, 
while  a  man  can  be  a  wonder  to  himself;  for,  by  the 
mysteriousness  of  his  own  nature,  when  he  feels  it,  a 
man  knows  that  the  surrounding  universe  must  cer 
tainly  be  alive  with  laws  and  marvels,  against  the  as 
tounding  effects  of  which  his  soul  is  saved,  only  by 
the  creative  arrangements  of  God,  who  lets  his  uni 
verse  "  not  speak  unto  you  as  unto  spiritual,  but  as 
unto  carnal,  even  as  unto  babes  in  Christ." 

Miracles  may  cease  to  interest  men,  as  prodigious 
tales  of  distant  ages,  and  remote  places ;  or  as  occur 
rences,  of  which  there  can  nothing  be  made.  But 
"  miracles,"  as  "  signs,"  will  be  significant  as  long  as 
human  nature  lasts  ;  which  means,  so  long  as  men  are 
mortal,  and  have  their  daily  walk  bordered  by  a  world 
immortal,  whence  effects  are  possible,  or  can  even  pos 
sibly  be  imagined,  as  to  influence  or  intervention. 

Because,  according  to  the  Scriptures,  all  human  be 
ings  are  more  or  less  susceptible  of  the  miraculous,  or 
of  being  acted  upon,  otherwise  than  through  their 
bodily  senses ;  or,  more  exactly  still,  of  being  influ 
enced  from  the  spiritual  world. 


260  MIRACLES  AS  SIGNS. 

It  is  true,  that  we  live  by  laws,  some  of  which  prob 
ably  are  unknown,  and  others  of  which  are  named  re 
spectively  as  being  chemical,  dynamic,  electric,  odic, 
and  vital :  but,  at  the  best,  this  all  is  but  a  scientific 
and  incomplete  statement  of  what  St.  Paul  credited 
even  the  heathen  for  knowing  as  to  God,  when  he  said, 
that,  "  In  him  we  live,  and  move,  and  have  our  being." 

Living  and  moving  in  God,  and  as  his  offspring ! 
Then  the  realm  of  nature  does  not  bound  the  circum 
ference  of  our  susceptibilities,  even  at  this  present  time, 
probably.  And  then  certainly,  also,  there  must  be  la 
tent  in  us  the  germs  of  new  beginnings,  which  may 
start  with  us,  as  to  effects,  in  one  world  after  another, 
on  our  eternal  progress  ;  and  as  to  which,  for  opening 
and  delight,  he  may  well  be  trusted,  to  whom  we  be 
long,  and  who  is  "  from  everlasting  to  everlasting." 

And  now,  finally,  a  "  miracle  "  being  a  "  sign,"  what 
is  a  sign  ?  It  may  have  at  the  time  of  its  giving,  an 
individual  and  momentary  pertinency  ;  but  it  has  also 
for  everybody,  who  knows  of  it,  a  personal  and  eternal 
meaning.  In  the  sense  of  "  miracle,"  a  "  sign  "  is  a 
sign  made  for  mortals,  from  the  world  immortal ;  and 
it  is  also  a  proof  that  the  soul  of  man  is  in  some  kind 
of  affinity  with  wonder-working  powers,  which  are 
active  outside  of  that  realm  of  nature,  with  which  we 
are  familiar  by  our  bodily  senses  or  common  experi 
ence. 

When  read  of  in  a  thoughtless  way,  miracles  in  the 
distance  may  be  but  mere  marvels  ;  but  really  when 
they  are  "  signs  "  they  are  signs  which  have  been  made 
for  men,  from  the  spiritual  world  ;  and  they  are  illus 
trations  of  the  laws  of  that  world,  which  we  mortals 


MIRACLES  AS  SIGNS.  261 

belong  to  spiritually ;  and  they  are  evidences  of  the 
interest,  which  is  felt  there,  about  us  spirits  in  the 
flesh.  Miracles  considered  as  signs,  are  flashes  of  light 
by  which  we  all  of  us  may  discern  the  grandeur  and 
also  the  peril  of  our  earthly  walk. 

It  was  argued  by  St.  Peter,  that  prophecy  in  the 
Scriptures  had  never  been  merely  for  individuals,  be 
cause  of  its  having  been  a  movement  by  the  Holy 
Ghost.  And  like  his  argument,  is  what  St.  Paul  wrote 
to  the  Corinthians,  as  to  even  the  distant  miracles  of 
the  age  of  Moses :  "  Now  all  these  things  happened 
unto  them  for  ensamples ;  and  they  are  written  for  our 
admonition,  upon  whom  the  ends  of  the  world  are 
come." 


MIEACLES   AND   THE   CREATIVE   SPIRIT. 

ACCORDING  to  the  book  of  Genesis,  the  creation 
of  man  was  thus,  —  "  The  Lord  God  formed  man 
of  the  dust  of  the  ground,  and  breathed  into  his  nos 
trils  the  breath  of  life  ;  and  man  became  a  living  soul." 
There  may  perhaps,  at  the  Creation  have  been  more 
ways  than  one,  by  which  man  might  have  grown  in 
knowledge;  but  that  which  obtained  with  him,  was 
what  is  referred  to,  in  Ecclesiastes,  where  it  is  said  that 
"much  study  is  a  weariness  of  the  flesh"  ;  and  which 
indeed  often  ends  in  self-confusion ;  and  which  also,  at 
the  best,  commonly  incurs  some  loss,  as  a  counterbal 
ance  against  every  gain.  And  because  for  us  human 
beings,  science,  or  philosophy,  or  learning,  or  all  of  them 
combined,  are  only  a  lamp  of  knowledge,  it  happens 
that  things  ar.e  out  of  sight  or  in  it,  and  seem  great  or 
seem  small,  not  because  of  what  they  are  in  them 
selves,  as  because  of  the  light,  by  which  they  are 
looked  at.  And  hence  partly  has  resulted  the  strange 
variety  of  opinions,  which  have  been  published  on  the 
subject  of  miracles.  Man  indeed  may  well  be  the 
subject  of  marvellous  experiences  :  "  For  we  are  but  of 
yesterday  and  know  nothing."  And  yet  there  is  not 
one  of  us  but  might  say,  "The  Spirit  of  God  hath 
made  me,  and  the  breath  of  the  Almighty  hath  given 
me  life."  linages  of  God  as  we  are,  and  living  souls, 


MIRACLES   AND   THE   CREATIVE   SPIRIT.  263 

we  have  all  of  us,  been  created  in  the  spirit  of  the 
universe,  and  are  therefore  susceptible  of  its  disclos 
ures.  And  if  we  have  no  great  or  common  experi 
ence  of  them,  in  these  days  of  dulness  and  flesh  and 
mortality,  we  are  yet  none  the  less  certain  of  having 
them  hereafter,  when  seraphs  shall  be  on  the  wing 
about  us,  and  we  be  walking,  alongside  of  "  a  pure 
river  of  water  of  life,  clear  as  crystal,  proceeding  out 
of  the  throne  of  God  and  of  the  Lamb." 

In  the  Scriptures,  it  is  to  be  read  that,  more  than 
once,  leprosy  was  caused  by  a  miracle,  and  that  several 
times,  by  a  miracle,  it  was  cured.  And  perhaps  by  the 
way  in  which  the  first  man  incurred  disease,  there  was 
something  miraculous  involved,  just  as  certainly  as  at 
Lystra  and  other  places,  through  Paul  by  a  bodily 
touch,  or  by  some  point  in  them  spiritually  being  af 
fected,  sufferers  were  strengthened  and  cured.  Finite 
creatures,  surrounded  by  the  infinite,  and  more  or  less 
vitally  connected  with  it,  we  are  wrapped  about,  and 
we  are  pervaded,  by  possibilities  of  a  miraculous  char 
acter.  "  For  I  am  fearfully  and  wonderfully  made  : 
marvellous  are  thy  works ;  and  that  my  soul  knoweth 
right  well." 

As  to  outward  appurtenances,  and  as  to  those  powers 
of  his,  which  tell  instantly  on  the  surrounding  world, 
generally  a  man  is  quick  enough,  but  as  to  his  make, 
it  is  almost  the  last  thing  ever  to  be  thought  of.  So 
wonderfully  am  I  made,  that  I  do  not  know  myself, 
nor  understand  myself.  And  the  constitution  of  my 
body  is  known  to  me  through  discoveries,  which  are 
only  very  recent,  notwithstanding  that  the  nature  of 
the  human  body  was  a  matter  of  great  and  vital  con- 


264  MIRACLES   AND   THE   CREATIVE   SPIRIT. 

i 

cern,  to  millions  of  men,  in  many  past  ages.  And  the 
more  there  is  known  about  it,  manifestly  the  more 
there  is  to  learn ;  not  perhaps  as  regards  its  composi 
tion,  but  as  to  its  relationship  by  electricity  and  mag 
netism  to  the  atmosphere,  and  it  may  be  to  the  sun 
and  moon  and  planets.  For  indeed  we  are  not  simply 
denizens  of  this  earth,  but  we  are  creatures  of  the  uni 
verse,  borne  about  by  a  planet,  which  is  one  of  many 
sisters  ;  the  whole  family  of  which  are  related  in  every 
direction  infinitely. 

A  man  can  hear  only  what  his  ears  will  let  him 
hear.  Over  our  heads  may  be  made  the  music  of  the 
spheres,  though  inaudibly  to  us  ;  and  yet  it  might  be 
distinctly  perceptible  perhaps,  were  our  hearing  a  little 
quickened,  or  were  the  reporting  power  of  the  air  or 
the  ether  a  little  intensified.  This  is  readily  credible. 
And  really,  by  analogy,  which  is  largely  what  we  all 
of  us  think  by,  the  ongoings  of  the  universe  hint  to 
all  persons,  who  are  not  mere  arithmeticians  or  logi 
cians,  that  we  are  concerned  with  laws,  which  science 
has  never  yet  detected,  and  which  perhaps,  by  their 
nature,  transcend  its  methods.  And  therefore  any 
thing,  which  might  be  called  a  miracle,  instead  of 
being  treated  defiantly,  should  as  perhaps  being  spirit 
ually  "  a  sign,"  "be  as  welcome,  at  least,  as  the  news  of 
another  asteroid,  or  of  some  affinity  among  salts,  just 
freshly  detected.  "  Oh,"  says  some  one,  "  but  the  Bible 
is  enough  for  me."  And  so  truly  it  might  well  be,  if 
only  he  could  read  it  aright.  But  apparently  it  was 
not  meant,  that  the  Scriptures  should  be  a  very  easy 
book  for  everybody,  and  for  all  persons  alike,  the  self- 
conceited  and  the  humble,  the  worldly-wise  and  the 


MIRACLES   AND   THE   CREATIVE   SPIRIT.  265 

man  "taught  of  God."  Else,  how  does  it  happen, 
among  Christians,  that  there  are  so  many  sects,  Eoman 
Catholic,  Greek  Catholic,  Episcopalian,  Methodist  Epis 
copalian,  Presbyterian,  Orthodox,  Unitarian  ?  The 
Bible,  as  a  history  of  the  manifestation  of  the  Spirit 
of  God,  the  writer  hereof  trusts  to,  as  his  highest 
guidance ;  but  he  believes  that  it  was  meant  to  be  read 
as  it  was  given,  concurrently  with  Providence,  and  by 
the  help  of  such  light  therefrom,  directly  and  indi 
rectly,  as  may  fall,  from  time  to  time,  on  such  eyes  as 
may  be  open  to  receive  it.  All  criticism,  historical, 
dogmatic,  chronological,  being  fairly  allowed  for,  the 
Bible  is  manifestly  to-day,  the  greatest  treasure  which 
is  held  in  any  earthen  vessel ;  and  such  it  will  be  to 
the  end  of  time,  no  doubt,  or  at  least  till  time  shall 
begin  again  in  some  new  aeon,  millennial  or  other. 
But  though  the  Bible  is  always  the  same,  as  to  what  is 
written,  the  eyes  with  which  it  is  read  vary  at  least 
from  one  generation  to  another.  By  Providence,  it  is 
ordained  that  men  shall  pass  through  this  life  of  ours, 
one  generation  after  another ;  and  through  Providence 
also  it  is  foreordained,  that  for  the  people  who  read  it 
in  succession,  the  Bible  shall  widen  in  meaning.  For, 
anything  from  the  Spirit  of  God,  addressed  to  mere 
spirits  in  the  flesh,  must  be  found  to  mean  more  and 
more,  the  longer  it  is  looked  at. 

No  one,  with  an  eye  for  history,  can  glance  across 
it,  without  being  struck  by  the  manner  in  which  often 
beliefs  grow  and  fail,  and  apparently  without  sufficient 
reasons,  from  among  men  themselves.  A  striking  re 
mark  was  made  by  an  awe-struck  writer  as  to  the  French 
Eevolution,  and  by  De  Tocqueville,  perhaps;  and  it 
12 


266  MIRACLES  AND   THE   CREATIVE   SPIRIT. 

was  this,  that  the  spirit  of  that  revolution  went  abroad, 
touching  and  transforming  persons  in  a  way,  which 
was  not  to  be  accounted  for  humanly,  either  as  to  be 
nevolence,  religion,  or  taste ;  but  spreading  as  though 
by  infection.  And  no  doubt  with  that  strange  mani 
festation,  there  was  more  concerned  than  simply  the 
diffusion  of  words.  Men  were  men,  and  tongues  were 
tongues  ;  but  there  was  that  in  the  air,  which  the  men 
breathed,  which  perhaps  was  new.  It  may  have  been 
something  of  the  nature  of  magnetism,  which  may 
possibly  have  originated  altogether  with  men  them 
selves  ;  or  it  may  have  been  something  of  that  kind, 
intensified  through  spiritual  affinities,  active  in  more 
directions  than  one.  It  was  a  something,  so  to  say,  in 
the  air :  and  as  some  bodily  diseases  are  infectious,  so 
also,  it  would  seem,  are  some  diseases  of  the  spirit. 
And  in  both  cases  the  condition  of  disease  is  sugges 
tive  of  the  channels  of  health,  and  may  illustrate 
them.  And  the  reverse  of  panic  or  of  fanaticism  by 
infection  is  courage  or  is  faith,  by  the  Holy  Ghost. 
And  we  are  Christians  fully  and  joyously,  only  as-  far 
as  it  has  been  our  personal  experience,  that  "  By  one 
Spirit  are  we  all  baptized  into  one  body,  whether  we 
be  Jews  or  Gentiles,  whether  we  be  bond  or  free  ;  and 
have  been  all  made  to  drink  into  one  Spirit."  Com 
monly,  logic  is  but  an  oar,  almost  without  a  blade,  by 
which  a  thinker  fancies  that  he  is  making  an  inde 
pendent  course  ;  while  really  his  soul  is  afloat  upon  a 
stream  which  is  infinitely  stronger  than  his  arm :  and 
while  he  thinks  that  he  is  rowing  himself  indepen 
dently  of  all  the  forces  of  the  universe,  he  is  carried  in- 
'deed  to  a  port  of  his  willing,  but  which  he  would  never 


MIRACLES   AND   THE   CREATIVE    SPIRIT.  267 

have  aimed  at,  but  for  the  air  upon  the  water,  and 
which  indeed  he  had  to  breathe  for  his  life.  And  at 
the  best,  and  in  order  to  be  at  its  best,  logic  is  only 
movement,  step  after  step.  It  does  but  work  slowly, 
and  as  it  were  on  the  deck  of  a  ship,  which  itself  may 
all  the  while  be  driven  of  the  winds  of  heaven,  and 
tossed  upon  the  waves  of  the  deep. 

Live  believingly  by  logic  alone !  That  is  what  a 
man  may  do,  with  only  the  one  half  of  his  nature 
alive ;  and  that,  of  course,  the  half  of  him,  which  is 
only  a  little  more  than  what  does  live  "by  bread 
alone."  But  to  find  the  way  to  the  Father  in  heaven 
by  logic  would  be  such  a  hard  thing  for  even  the 
greatest  intellect  that  God  condescends  to  us.  And  at 
this  day,  by  a  miracle,  which  has  never  been  inter 
mitted  since  the  days  of  Pentecost,  for  those  of  us  who 
are  willing,  "God  hath  sent  forth  the  Spirit  of  his 
Son  into  your  hearts,  crying,  Abba,  Father." 

To  live  by  logic,  working  merely  on  earthly  infor 
mation,  is  what  may  be  done  by  individuals,  and 
almost  even  by  individual  generations ;  but  it  is  what 
cannot  last,  because  of  its  not  being  human.  For  we 
human  beings,  though  native  to  "  the  heavens  and  the 
earth,  which  are  now,"  are  yet  now  already  living  with- 
inside  the  outskirts  of  "  a  city,  which  hath  foundations, 
whose  builder  and  maker  is  God."  And  so,  certainly, 
until  the  last  man  shall  have  been  gathered  into  the 
bosom  of  eternity,  miracles,  marvels,  wonders  will  be 
dear  to  the  human  race  as  proofs,  presumptively,  that 
men  are  of  more  than  fleshly  make,  and  as  "  signs,"  per 
haps  even  vouchsafed  to  them,  of  there  being  another 
world  than  this,  in  which  we  live,  and  have  to  die. 


268  MIRACLES   AND   THE   CREATIVE   SPIRIT. 

Hard  as  glass  is,  yet  it  is  pervious  to  the  impalpable 
rays  of  light;  and  electricity  will  run  along  a  wire 
hundreds  of  miles  in  length.  Well  then  may  the 
"  wonderfully  made  "  body  of  man  be  credited  for  sus 
ceptibilities,  which  though  they  may  commonly  be 
occult,  may  yet  also  sometimes  be  the  channels  of 
great  wonders.  "As  thou  knowest  not  what  is  the 
way  of  the  spirit,  nor  how  the  bones  do  grow  in  the 
womb  of  her  that  is  with  child,  even  so  thou  knowest 
not  the  works  of  God  who  maketh  all.". 

Human  beings  are  spirits  held  in  clay ;  and  though 
that  clay  indeed  be  vitalized  by  the  lungs  and  the  heart, 
it  is  yet  porous  and  pervious  to  forces  which  sweep 
round  the  world,  or  which  stream  from  pole  to  pole, 
such  as  electricity  and  magnetism.  And  there  is  also 
the  odic  force.  And  concurrently  with  these  forces, 
only  so  lately  known  of,  though  now  so  positively 
ascertained,  it  would  seem  as  though  there  might  be 
other  powers,  higher  and  still  more  occult  than  they. 
And  therefore  it  might  seem  as  though  some  doctrines 
and  statements  in  the  Scriptures  should  reasonably  ap 
pear  to  be  more  credible  to  such  persons  as  have  doubted 
spiritually,  because  of  their  having  been  infected  by 
materialism.  In  man  there  is  an  eye  for  seeing,  and  an 
ear  for  hearing ;  and  it  is  through  the  air  that  ear  and 
eye  both  perceive.  And  through  the  air  also  there  is 
the  possibility  by  which  a  great  thunder-storm  at  the 
Cape  of  Good  Hope  might  be  known  of  almost  in  a 
moment,  as  affecting  the  atmosphere  electrically,  at 
Cape  Horn,  and  on  the  Himalaya  Mountains. 

Think  of  the  electric  telegraph,  as  to  what  it  is  in 
itself  and  as  to  the  way  in  which  it  works  ;  and  under 


MIRACLES   AND   THE   CREATIVE   SPIRIT.  269 

the  best  information,  consider  what  man  is  as  to  body 
and  spirit ;  and  then  many  strange  marvels  will  seem 
indeed  to  be  transcendent,  but  not  therefore  unnatural 
nor  incredible,  —  such  as  prophetic  dreams,  sudden 
persuasions  as  to  far  distant  occurrences,  the  expe 
riences  of  second  sight,  an  occasional  apparition  even, 
and  deep,  true  impressions  received  unaccountably,  and 
as  though  from  some  whispering  spirit.  Electricity 
seems  to  be,  in  common  language,  more  than  the  half 
of  the  distance  from  matter  to  spirit.  And  it  is  con 
ceivable,  and  it  would  seem  even  to  be  highly  proba 
ble,  that  as  electricity  coexists  with  gravitation,  so 
there  may  also  be  forces  in  the  universe,  transcending 
electricity,  and  nearly  akin  even  to  spirit  itself.  And 
with  these  powers,  probably,  we  mortals  are  concerned 
more  or  less,  as  we  are  with  magnetism  or  with  the 
oxygen  of  the  atmosphere. 

But  it  may  be  asked,  "  If  there  be  a  spiritual  atmos 
phere,  or  anything  like  it,  which  concerns  man,  and 
through  which  spiritual  causes  may  affect  him,  why 
has  he  never  been  informed  of  it,  by  revelation,  just 
as  by  revelation  he  learns  that  he  is  spirit  as  well  as 
body  ? "  To  this  question  the  answer  is  very  simple. 
Man  lives  by  breath  ;  and  yet  he  was  not  born  with 
an  instinctive  philosophy  as  to  the  properties,  uses,  and 
dangers  of  the  common  air.  And  after  all  these  thou 
sands  of  years,  since  the  first  man  died,  men  are  but 
now  just  beginning  to  understand  the  nature  of  the  at 
mosphere.  Even  if  the  science  of  spirit  had  been  im 
parted  to  the  first  man,  it  could  not  have  lasted  long 
with  men,  if  it  had  been  widely  out  of  keeping  with 
their  science  as  to  nature.  And  this  indeed  would 


270  MIRACLES   AND   THE   CREATIVE   SPIRIT. 

seem  to  be  implied  by  the  words  of  Jesus,  "Verily, 
verily,  I  say  unto  thee,  we  speak  that  we  do  know,  and 
testify  that  we  have  seen ;  and  ye  receive  not  our  wit 
ness.  If  I  have  told  you  earthly  things,  and  ye  be 
lieve  not,  how  shall  ye  believe,  if  I  tell  you  of  heavenly 
things  ? "  And  thus,  indeed,  ultimately,  instead  of 
there  being  a  domination  of  Christianity  by  science, 
it  will  result  that  science  will  but  have  predisposed 
Christians  themselves  for  a  better  understanding  of 
the  Bible.  For  there  are  some  important  verities  in 
the  Scriptures,  which  are  almost  latent  at  present. 
And  indeed  truths  uttered  from  the  Spirit,  in  human 
words,  or  in  metaphors  derived  from  nature,  must 
always  have  to  wait  long,  before  they  can  commonly 
be  well  understood,  because  they  are  only  to  be  "  spirit 
ually  discerned." 

A  thousand  years  ago,  and  even  almost  within  the  last 
two  hundred  years,  in  the  most  enlightened  spot  of  Eu 
rope,  a  farmer  toiled  upon  his  land,  and  felt  the  while 
as  though  outside  of  his  township  there  was  nothing 
but  danger  and  darkness.  To-day,  however,  there  is 
not  an  American  agriculturist  but  feels  that  to  do  well, 
he  must  know  of  the  circumference  of  the  world,  and 
also  of  the  natural  forces  which  sweep  through  the 
land,  and  which  keep  the  earth  alive ;  and  that  indeed 
for  skill,  he  has  got  to  be  one  of  "  the  laborers  together 
with  God."  There  has  been  this  great  change  with 
"  the  natural  man."  And  is  it  not,  then,  reasonable  to 
expect  an  extension  of  that  knowledge,  which  is  the 
field  of  "  the  spiritual  man  "  ? 

Doubt  about  a  miracle,  merely  as  a  great  surprise ! 
And  yet  by  optics,  there  have  been  as  great  surprises 


MIRACLES   AND   THE   CREATIVE   SPIRIT.  271 

given  to  men,  as  any  spirit  ever  gave.  And  surely,  if 
a  man  did  not  study  science,  and  think  by  it,  as  a  sol 
dier  moves,  who  has  been  sworn  to  service,  and  whose 
business  it  is  to  know  no  more  than  what  he  is  put 
upon,  optics  alone  might  well  predispose  him  to  believe 
in  marvels,  without  end. 

Look  at  a  tadpole  through  a  microscope,  and  what  a 
marvel  is  manifested  out  of  nothing  !  Yet  the  micro 
scope  is  as  true,  in  its  way,  as  the  telescope ;  and  prob 
ably  there  are  spirits  living,  in  the  universe,  who  be 
long  to  a  region  far  below  the  steps  of  the  throne  of 
God,  whose  eyes  have  of  themselves  the  power  of  both 
telescope  and  microscope  combined.  Also  we,  human 
beings,  by  birth,  probably  have  visual  faculties  as 
strong  as  telescope  and  microscope,  but  for  the  flesh  in 
which  we  walk  about.  With  a  little  bodily  disorgani 
zation,  the  spirit  of  a  man  becomes  "  clairvoyant,"  and 
he  can  read  well,  and  can  even  walk  and  climb  more 
securely  with  his  eyes  shut  than  when  wide  awake. 
So,  even  scientifically,  a  man  should  be  inclined  to  be 
lieve  in  miracles,  as  wonders,  or  as  signs  made  from 
steps  above  him,  in  intelligence. 

By  the  electric  telegraph,  we  begin  to  realize  certain 
characteristics  of  the  spiritual  world,  and,  as  Sweden- 
borg  would  say,  the  comparative  unimportance  of  time 
and  space.  At  any  hour,  almost,  it  is  possible  for  a 
person  to  communicate  with  any  city  in  Europe,  though 
at  a  distance,  perhaps,  of  three  or  four  thousand  miles. 
But,  in  comparison  with  this  actuality,  it  would  have 
seemed,  a  hundred  years  ago,  that  intercourse  was  just 
as  likely  with  "  Jerusalem,  which  is  from  above."  And 
surely,  if  man  be  "  a  living  soul,"  and  be,  by  birth,  a 


272  MIRACLES   AND   THE   CREATIVE   SPIRIT. 

native  of  "  the  world  which  now  is,"  and  heir  to  "  the 
world  which  is  to  come,"  it  would  seem  as  though  the 
marvels  which  science  discovers  might  be  but  the 
earthly  counterpart  of  miracles  or  "  signs  "  unearthly, 
which  denote  solemnly  the  opening  of  the  heavens, 
and  that  something  may  be  happening,  like  what  was 
meant  when  it  was  said,  prophetically,  that  "  times  of 
refreshing  shall  come  from  the  presence  of  the  Lord." 

If  the  ancients  could  possibly  be  confronted  with 
the  philosophers  of  the  present  time,  it  might  well  be 
proposed  for  them  to  compromise  as  to  incredulity,  and 
that  the  moderns  should  believe  in  the  spiritual  world 
because  of  science,  and  that  the  ancients  should  be 
lieve  in  science  because  of  their  belief  in  spirit ;  for, 
really,  miracles  are  what  signs  are  possible  from  an  ex 
tra-sensual  world,  while  science  is  largely  the  report 
of  semi-sensual  forces,  outside  of  that  solid  world  in 
which  anciently  men  thought  that  they  lived. 

But,  if  we  are  accessible  from  the  spiritual  world  by 
influences  or  visitants,  why  have  we  never  been  told 
of  it  ?  And  now,  really,  what  more  express  telling 
could  there  possibly  be,  on  any  subject,  anywhere,  than 
there  is  on  this,  in  the  Scriptures  ?  And  again,  if  there 
be  an  opening  between  this  world  and  another,  it  may 
be  asked,  why  the  way  of  it  is  not  to  be  read  of  in  the 
Scriptures.  But  now,  there  is  a  philosophy  of  this 
present  world,  which  has  only  very  lately  been  known 
of,  but  yet  to  the  advice  of  which  chemically,  as  to 
health,  we  trust  ourselves  implicitly.  And  if  it  should 
be  objected,  "  Oh,  but  the  soul !  How  can  a  man  think 
to  know  more  about  it  than  his  ancestors  did  ?  "  And 
to  this,  answer  may  be  made  by  another  question,  and 


MIRACLES   AND  THE   CREATIVE   SPIRIT.  273 

it  is  this  :  "  What  kind  of  a  creature  would  man  have 
been,  if,  by  his  science,  he  had  been  a  Troglodyte  or  a 
dirt-eater,  and  been  also  bright  the  while,  with  the 
wisdom  of  a  seraph,  and  warm  with  the  love  of  a 
cherub  ? "  Certainly,  it  cannot  have  been  otherwise 
than  that  at  the  creation  of  man,  it  must  have  been 
ordained,  that  he  should  have  the  Intellectual  Universe 
disclose  itself  to  him  spiritually,  as  fast  at  least,  as  he 
of  himself  should  be  able  to  find  it  out  scientifically. 

"  The  heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God,  and  the  fir 
mament  showeth  his  handiwork."  That  was  David's 
belief.  But  then  David  believed  in  enlightenment 
from  above ;  and  indeed,  among  his  last  words  he  said, 
"  The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  spake  by  me,  and  his  word 
was  in  my  tongue."  The  Psalmist  said,  "  The  heavens 
declare  the  glory  of  God."  But  there  are  persons  as 
suming  the  attitude  of  philosophers  at  this  present 
time,  who  would  say,  "  There  cannot,  perhaps,  be  glory 
for  what  has  not  self-consciousness ;  but  truly  and 
grandly  the  heavens,  on  being  found  out,  do  declare  the 
glory  of  astronomers  and  the  human  intellect."  And 
there  are  people  who  think  that  this  sentiment  is 
something  new  !  And  yet  their  forefathers  in  intelli 
gence,  thought  in  the  same  way,  perhaps,  twenty-five 
hundred  years  ago  ;  for,  in  the  book  of  Habbakuk  the 
prophet,  there  is  to  be  read  of  fishermen  who  worshipped 
their  nets,  because  of  a  good  catch.  "  Therefore  they 
sacrifice  unto  their  net,  and  burn  incense  unto  their 
drag ;  because  by  them  their  portion  is  fat,  and  their 
meat  plenteous."  To  grow  in  intellect,  or  even  in  the 
humblest  skill,  is  to  grow  godless,  except  as  those  sus 
ceptibilities  in  a  man  are  kept  open  which  are  God- 
12*  R 


274  MIRACLES  AND   THE   CREATIVE   SPIRIT. 

wards.  "  But,"  as  St.  Paul  wrote  to  the  Corinthians, 
"  but  as  it  is  written,  Eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  ear  heard, 
neither  have  entered  into  the  heart  of  man,  the  things 
which  God  hath  prepared  for  them  that  love  him. 
But  God  hath  revealed  them  unto  us  by  his  Spirit : 
for  the  Spirit  searcheth  all  things,  yea,  the  deep  things 
of  God.  For  what  man  knoweth  the  things  of  a  man, 
save  the  spirit  of  man,  which  is  in  him  ?  even  so  the 
things  of  God  knoweth  no  man,  but  the  Spirit  of  God." 
And  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  word  "  miracle,"  the 
Spirit  of  God,  as  it  is  experienced  by  individual  Chris 
tians,  from  one  generation  to  another,  is  itself  a  con 
tinuous,  unceasing  miracle  in  the  world. 

In  a  right  temper,  when  a  man  remembers  that  his 
life  began  with  his  birth,  only  a  very  few  birthdays 
back,  then  no  wonder  seems  to  him  so  great,  as  even 
his  own  ability  to  ask  about  a  miracle.  And  no  mira 
cle,  perhaps,  ever  was  greater  than  what  is  implied  by 
the  manner,  in  which  a  person  can  be  accused  by  his  con 
science  all  through  his  life.  For,  what  actually  would 
conscience  seem  to  be  ?  It  is  a  faculty  of  human  na 
ture,  certainly,  and  yet,  certainly,  not  in  quite  the  same 
way  as  logic  is ;  for,  it  is  a  faculty  which  would  seem 
to  be  open  to  re-enforcement,  and  to  have  in  it  the 
spirit  of  a  higher  world,  for  meaning  and  strength. 
Conscience,  by  its  manner  of  acting,  would  predispose 
to  a  belief  in  "  signs  and  wonders  "  and  miracles. 

It  is  a  common  conceit,  that  between  matter  and 
spirit  there  is  such  a  gulf  of  separation,  as  that  the 
possibility  of  anything  spiritual  in  this  world,  may 
rightly  be  denied  at  once,  whether  it  be  as  regards 
angels  or  devils  or  apparitions,  or  the  Holy  Spirit,  the 


MIRACLES   AND   THE  CREATIVE   SPIRIT.  275 

Comforter.  And  this  notion  is  common  even  with 
some  mere  Scripturists.  And  yet,  surely,  there  is 
nothing  like  it  in  the  Scriptures.  The  laws  of  the 
material  world  act  together,  like  those  of  the  human 
body :  and  they  connect  together  in  such  a  way,  the 
lower  with  the  higher,  as  to  suggest  spirit  itself  as  the 
end,  if  that  may  be  called  an  end  which  is  a  begin 
ning,  connected  with  immortality. 

In  the  human  body,  what  diverse  laws  do  by  some 
means  communicate  with  one  another ;  as  the  chemi 
cal  with  the  dynamic,  and  these  again  with  other  laws, 
such  as  those  of  gravitation  and  electricity  f  Spirit 
unable  to  touch  or  affect  matter  under  any  conditions 
—  what  nonsense !  For,  in  the  body  of  a  man,  laws, 
hard  to  distinguish  from  spirit,  are  assembled  together, 
and  blend,  as  it  were,  into  one  spirit-like  force,  which 
is  called  vitality. 

That  a  spirit  cannot  do  anything  for  men  to  know 
of,  and  cannot  give  "  a  sign,"  seems  to  some  persons  to 
be  absolutely  certain,  because,  as  they  think,  spirit 
cannot  possibly  touch,  nor  handle,  nor  know  of  matter ; 
and  yet  they  believe  that  they,  individually,  are  body 
and  spirit  united.  They  cannot  tell  how  anger  clenches 
for  a  man  his  fist,  nor  how  their  own  thoughts  become 
words ;  and  yet  they  are  certain  that  spirit  can  never 
affect  matter  in  any  way ;  and  they  are  certain  of  this, 
notwithstanding  that  they  do  not  even  know  what  a 
spirit  may  be.  And  yet,  actually,  by  its  immortal  na 
ture,  a  spirit  may  have  endless  aptitudes,  and  appli 
ances,  and  powers  of  self-adjustment. 

At  one  time,  anciently,  it  was  held  in  psychology 
that  some  demons  or  wandering  spirits  were  spiritual 


276  MIRACLES   AND   THE   CREATIVE   SPIRIT. 

bodies  possessed  of  absorbent  powers,  by  which  they 
could  assimilate  some  of  the  finer  particles  of  matter 
from  the  air,  and  so  become  thinly  embodied,  and 
faintly  visible.  And  it  would  seem  as  though  it  prob 
ably  might  have  been  so ;  and  if  so,  really  it  is  a  very- 
curious  fact.  But  other  things  like  it  have  been  re 
corded;  and  of  which  one  or  two,  by  pneumatology, 
would  seem  to  have  analogies  in  the  Scriptures.  And 
on  the  supposition  that  they  are  true,  they  are  more 
important  than  they  might  seem  to  be  at  the  first  sight ; 
because  they  illustrate  the  possibilities  of  the  universe, 
and  the  manner  in  which  the  supernatural  may  begin 
from  the  natural;  and  even  also  they  may  elucidate 
perhaps  Christian  doctrine.  For,  if  we  are  the  work 
manship  of  God,  and  are  created  in  the  image  of  God, 
it  would  seem  to  imply  that  there  must  be  latent  in 
us  many  affinities,  by  which  hereafter  we  shall  be  con 
nected  with  the  works  of  God,  in  many  and  perhaps 
infinite  directions.  For  if  men  be  "heirs  of  God," 
they  would  seem  to  be  qualified  by  their  spirituality, 
and  under  the  Divine  permission,  to  reach  and  enter 
upon  one  world  after  another,  notwithstanding  what 
the  constituent  arrangements  of  those  worlds,  individ 
ually,  may  be.  It  is  to  be  read  in  the  Book  of  Eevela- 
tion,  "  Write,  Blessed  are  they  which  are  called  unto 
the  marriage  supper  of  the  Lamb."  And  blessed  are 
they  in  the  highest ;  for,  by  the  wedding-garment  they 
are  free  of  every  mansion  in  the  Father's  house.  And, 
as  children  pf  God  Most  High,  it  would  seem  as  though 
there  must  be  the  possibility  by  birth,  for  all  souls  to 
be  free  of  all  worlds,  not  in  a  moment,  of  course,  but 
only  very  slowly.  Because  human  souls  are  but  crea- 


MIRACLES  AND  THE  CREATIVE  SPIRIT.  277 

tions,  as  it  were,  of  yesterday;  and  though  they  are 
predestined  to  be  eternal,  yet,  while  living  by  the 
laws  of  nature,  they  might  well  appear  in  the  eyes  of 
an  archangel  to  be  but  like  phosphorescent  particles 
upon  the  sea  of  time,  which  are  bright  for  a  moment, 
and  then  vanished  forever.  "  But  thanks  be  to  God, 
which  giveth  us  the  victory  through  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ." 

Some  persons  are  utterly  disconcerted,  when  it  is 
urged  seriously  as  to  God,  that  "  In  him  we  live  and 
move,  and  have  our  being,"  and  that,  thence  as  a  fact, 
there  are  inferences  to  be  drawn,  as  to  what  human 
beings  are,  or  may  hope  to  be.  And  yet  that  text, 
"  Draw  nigh  to  God,  and  he  will  draw  nigh  to  you," 
and  that  beginning  of  prayer,  "  Our  Father  which  art 
in  heaven,"  —  these  would  seem  to  teach  that,  while 
yet  in  the  flesh,  we  may  be  living  by  the  Spirit,  and 
that  really  "  signs "  are  possible  for  us,  even  though 
there  may  never  be  more  than  one  "  sign  "  to  be  real 
ized  by  us,  while  we  are  earthly.  But  that  one  sign, 
however,  should  perhaps  be  the  greatest  of  miracles 
for  those  who  can  apprehend  it ;  and  it  is  this,  —  that 
we  and  God  are  living  together  —  he  "  from  everlast 
ing  to  everlasting,"  and  we  by  "  the  breath  of  the  Al 
mighty." 

Oh  that  infesting,  nonsensical  notion  of  there  being 
a  sharp  line  of  demarcation  between  matter  and  spirit, 
in  consequence  of  which,  in  the  universe,  somewhere 
or  other,  there  is  non-intercourse  !  And  if  really  there 
were  such  a  line,  man  would  not  be  concerned  with  it ; 
for,  if  man  be  clay,  he  is  also  spirit  with  all  its  prop 
erties,  some  of  which  certainly  are  active  with  him, 
though  others  may  be  dormant. 


278  MIRACLES   AND   THE   CREATIVE   SPIRIT. 

Under  God,  this  universe  is  a  living  whole,  dust  and 
stars  alike  included,  and  from  coral  insects  up  to  "  the 
seven  Spirits  which  are  before  his  throne." 

For  most  persons,  the  omnipresence  of  God,  notwith 
standing  its  infinite  significance,  is  almost  a  benumb 
ing  phrase,  because  of  the  inane  manner  in  which  it 
has  been  taught  as  a  doctrine.  "  Fear  not  them  which 
kill  the  body,  but  are  not  able  to  kill  the  soul :  but 
rather  fear  him  which  is  able  to  destroy  both  soul  and 
body  in  hell.  Are  not  two  sparrows  sold  for  a  far 
thing  ?  and  one  of  them  shall  not  fall  on  the  ground 
without  your  Father.  But  the  very  hairs  of  your  head 
are  all  numbered."  The  full  meaning  of  these  sayings 
of  Jesus  perhaps  the  most  pious  man  living  has  never 
felt,  even  while  agreeing  to  it  thoroughly  as  being  the 
truth.  And  as  to  miracles,  there  is  more  than  one  way 
of  believing.  For,  to  acquiesce  in  certain  ancient  state 
ments,  merely  because  we  cannot  deny  James,  and 
John,  and  Peter,  is  not  a  very  quickening  faith.  And 
even  to  trust  our  own  senses,  as  to  marvels,  may  well 
be,  without  our  being  spiritually  minded.  Mere  assent 
as  to  miracles  is  a  very  different  thing  from  knowing 
of  them  believingly,  in  the  spirit  of  wonder,  and  from 
a  sense  of  our  being  widely  connected  with  an  un 
known  universe. 

Unknown  by  us,  and  yet  not  utterly  unknown  is 
this  universe,  wherein  we  are  dwellers.  Our  souls,  at 
present,  live  cased  in  clay,  and  according  to  the  laws 
of  this  planet,  which  is  called  earth ;  but  when  our 
souls,  by  the  death  of  the  body,  shall  be  free  of  such 
laws  as  enchain  us  through  matter,  we  shall  find  our 
selves  as  to  God,  still  saying  as  we  do  now,  that  "  In 


MIRACLES  AND  THE  CREATIVE   SPIRIT.  279 

him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being."  And  so 
shall  we  have  to  say  to  all  eternity :  because  by  our 
living  and  moving  in  God,  we  are  now  already,  living 
in  that  Spirit,  infinite  and  eternal,  which  knows  noth 
ing  of  height  or  depth,  as  being  itself  all  which  there 
is  of  either,  —  that  spirit,  without  which  the  lightning 
cannot  flash,  nor  the  glow-worm  shine,  which  lets  loose 
"the  sweet  influences  of  the  Pleiades,"  and  which 
strengthens  "  the  bands  of  Orion,"  and  from  the  sense 
of  which,  once,  about  this  earth,  "  the  morning  stars 
sang  together,  and  all  the  sons  of  God  shouted  for  joy," 
—  that  spirit,  which  is  nature  in  those  "  who,  having 
not  the  law,  are  a  law  unto  themselves,"  and  which 
again  as  being  above  the  law,  can  quicken  where  "  the 
flesh  profiteth  nothing,"  —  that  spirit  by  which  the 
prophets  prophesied,  and  David  as  a  psalmist  was  in 
spired  to  sing,  and  which  yet  is  freer  than  daily  bread, 
for  such  persons  as  can  really  ask  for  it,  —  that  spirit, 
which  is  the  consummation  of  all  miracles  in  one,  for 
the  man  who  has  full  experience  of  it,  because  "  Now 
the  Lord  is  that  Spirit,"  and  "  He  that  is  joined  unto 
the  Lord  is  one  spirit." 

That  a  miracle  should  be  defined  or  be  objected  to, 
as  an  act  suspending  the  laws  of  nature,  may  seem,  at 
this  stage  in  our  argument,  to  be  absurd,  as  perhaps  it 
really  is.  For  a  miracle  says  about  itself,  only  that  it 
is  "  miraculum,"  a  little  wonder,  or  a  "  sign  and  won 
der."  An  angel  might  give  me  a  sign,  at  the  recollec 
tion  of  which  hereafter,  I  should  smile,  should  I  ever 
become  an  archangel.  But  because  I  can  anticipate 
the  possibilities  of  eternity  in  this  bold  manner,  it  does 
not  follow  that  a  miracle  is  anything  less  than  miracu- 


280  MIRACLES   AND   THE   CREATIVE   SPIRIT. 

lous  to-day,  or  less  than  a  precious  hint  given  to  me 
from  outside  of  this  world,  as  to  there  being  more 
spiritual  activities  than  I  know  of,  and  with  some  of 
which  my  own  nature  may  be  more  or  less  involved, 
by  affinity. 

Miracles  are  like  signs,  made  from  steps  above  me, 
on  Jacob's  ladder.  The  dream  of  Jacob,  on  leaving  his 
father's  house,  is  curiously  illustrated  by  the  theory  of 
Plato,  as  to  the  spiritual  universe  and  the  manner  in 
which  men  are  influenced  and  taught ;  and  it  is  won 
derfully  corroborated  by  the  spirit  of  the  Book  of 
Revelation,  and  incidentally  indeed  and  often  by  texts, 
throughout  the  New  Testament.  St.  James  writes  in 
his  Epistle,  "  Every  good  gift  and  every  perfect  gift  is 
from  above,  and  cometh  down  from  the  Father  of 
lights."  Most  wonderful  indeed  is  that  dream,  or 
probably  that  vision  in  a  dream,  which  happened  to 
the  patriarch  Jacob  in  Syria,  some  thirteen  hundred 
years  before  the  age  of  Plato  the  philosopher  of  Greece. 
"  And  he  dreamed,  and  behold  a  ladder  set  up  on  the 
earth,  and  the  top  of  it  reached  to  heaven  :  and  behold 
the  angels  of  God  ascending  and  descending  on  it. 
And  behold  the  Lord  stood  above  it,  and  said,  I  am 
the  Lord  God  of  Abraham  thy  father,  and  the  God  of 
Isaac."  And  to-day  that  ladder  stands  over  every  one 
of  us,  the  emblem  of  revelation,  and  of  the  divine 
government  of  the  world;  even  though  on  to  the 
lower  steps  of  it,  spirits,  who  are  not  angels,  may  get 
to  stand  for  a  moment,  and  thence  give  signs  occasion 
ally.  It  is  true,  that  when  my  spirit  shall  be  called  up 
the  height  of  that  ladder,  I  shall  transcend  the  greatest 
of  all  such  miracles  as  I  have  ever  yet  known  of;  but 


MIRACLES  AND   THE   CREATIVE   SPIRIT.  281 

then,  too,  I  shall  have  the  stars  beneath  my  feet,  and 
science  itself  also,  and  I  shall  have  learned  perhaps 
what  the  song  was,  which  was  sung  over  our  newly 
created  earth,  when  u  all  the  sons  of  God  shouted  for 

j°y-" 

Men  are  the  children  of  the  Father  in  heaven,  and 
not  simply  occupants  of  a  planet,  and  natives  of  dirty 
cities  or  the  sweet  country.  And  there  is  in  every  one 
of  us,  now  already,  what  will  correspond  with  every 
step  on  that  ladder,  which  Jacob  saw  reach  up  to 
heaven.  And  what  becomes  us,  as  mortals,  is  to  trust 
in  the  certainty  of  that  ladder,  and  in  the  reality  of 
those  affinities,  by  which  we  are  connected  with  spirits 
and  angels,  and  through  which  miracles  are  possible, 
and  signs  can  be  vouchsafed  for  us. 

Said  Jesus  to  his  disciples,  "Verily,  verily,  I  say 
unto  you,  He  that  believeth  on  me,  the  works  that  I 
do  shall  he  do  also  :  and  greater  works  than  these  shall 
he  do,  because  I  go  unto  my  Father."  In  comparison 
with  greater  works  miraculously,  there  must  be  some 
which  are  less.  And  it  would  not  be  altogether  apart 
from  the  prophecy  of  Jesus  himself,  should  it  be  found 
that  in  some  places,  at  certain  times,  miracles  of  heal 
ing,  because  of  their  frequency,  had  been  less  thought 
of,  than  they  were  among  the  Jews,  in  the  age  of  Jesus. 
And  if  this  were  true,  what  then  ?  For,  what  is  a 
miracle,  but  a  sign  ?  And  what  is  a  sign,  in  the  sense 
of  a  miracle,  but  signification  of  there  being  power 
which  concerns  us,  though  outside  of  our  ordinary 
world.  It  would  seem,  then,  as  though  conceivably 
the  miracle  of  one  age,  might  become  so  common  in 
another,  as  to  begin  even  to  grow  less  wonderful.  But 


282  MIRACLES  AND  THE  CREATIVE  SPIRIT. 

the  more,  what  had  been  a  miracle,  should  lose  in  won 
der,  the  more  significant  still  would  it  grow  in  another 
way,  as  making  more  and  more  certain  what  at  first  it 
had  only  hinted  as  to  the  vital,  spiritual,  eternal  con 
nections  between  spirits  in  the  flesh  and  the  spiritual 
universe.  Because,  indeed,  we  mortals  belong  to  the 
world  immortal,  invisible,  through  our  spiritual  nature, 
'by  perhaps  a  thousand  powers  or  susceptibilities,  which 
probably  are  nearly  all  of  them  merely  latent  in  us  at 
present.  And  of  these  latent  powrers,  it  may  be,  that 
the  miracles  of  all  ages  have  been  intended  to  suggest 
for  us  the  actuality  of  some  five  or  six. 

For  the  "  heirs  of  the  kingdom,"  doubtless  it  will 
prove  that  all  the  miracles  of  the  Scriptures  will  have 
been  but  like  prophecies  of  the  powers,  and  the  joys,  and 
the  company  to  which  they  were  destined  to  attain. 
And  this  supposition  is  perhaps  by  the  same  line  of 
thought  as  that  along  which  St.  Paul  looked,  when  he 
foresaw  as  to  Jesus  Christ  that  "  when  all  things  shall 
be  subdued  unto  Him,  then  shall  the  Son  also  himself 
be  subject  unto  him,  that  put  all  things  under  him 
that  God  may  be  all  in  all." 

There  cannot  possibly  be  any  power  in  nature  at 
large,  which  man  can  discover,  but  must  have  some 
meaning  for  him,  as  to  his  own  nature,  and  be  indeed 
in  some  sense,  an  extension  of  it.  Nor  is  there  anything 
spiritually,  of  which  man  can  be  persuaded,  as  having 
spiritually  discerned  it,  but  must  prove  for  him,  an  in 
troduction  to  some  glory  beyond,  and  which  may  reach 
up  the  heights  of  heaven  to  all  eternity. 

The  telescope  and  the  microscope  are  merely  human 
inventions,  but  even  they  report  that  there  are  worlds 


MIRACLES   AND   THE   CREATIVE   SPIRIT.  283 

within  worlds,  and  worlds  beyond  worlds,  which  con 
cern  us.  But  when  these  instruments  discover  won 
ders,  in  their  way,  in  the  material  universe  for  the  ma 
terial  man ;  they  do  also,  to  the  man  who  is  spiritually 
minded,  suggest  prophetically  as  to  the  spiritual  world, 
of  there  being  wonders  there,  which  are  only  the  be 
ginnings  of  wonders,  and  of  there  being  one  heaven 
above  another  heaven. 

As  binding  worlds  together,  and  as  holding  them  in 
intercourse  for  some  purposes,  gravitation  and  magnet 
ism  and  electricity  may  be  instanced  as  powers.  And 
also  they  may  be  regarded  as  gross  similitudes  as  to 
the  ways,  by  which  our  spirits  will  find  themselves 
living  hereafter,  when  possessed  by  aspirations  after 
the  heaven  of  heavens. 

The  universe  is  all  alive,  and  it  is  alive  all  through 
out  it.  And  miracles  are  signs  made  for  us  mortals  by 
spirits,  in  different  conditions  from  ours,  higher  it  may 
be,  and  perhaps  even  lower,  and  perhaps  even  as  high 
as  that  of  the  Seven  Spirits. 

But  when  miracles  are  signs  from  heaven,  there 
comes  with  them  that  Spirit,  which  is  its  own  evidence 
for  those  who  can  feel  it,  because  of  the  irresistible 
manner  in  which  the  spiritual  man  is  thereby  per 
suaded.  When  God  Most  High  touches  a  man  with 
the  ringer  of  miracle,  the  man  feels  that  touch  in  his 
inmost  nature,  as  to  holiness  and  newness  of  life.  But 
miracles  of  a  lower  origin  than  the  highest,  may  for 
some  persons,  excite  only  the  externality  of  their  na 
ture,  and  make  them  perhaps  merely  wonder,  and  per 
haps  also  grow  in  self-conceit. 

But  whatever  the  constitution  of  the  universe  may 


284  MIRACLES  AND   THE   CREATIVE   SPIRIT. 

be,  of  worlds  within  worlds,  or  of  heavens  one  above 
another,  we  mortals  are  the  offspring  of  the  living  God, 
the  King  Eternal,  Immortal,  Invisible.  And  there  is 
that  in  every  one  of  us,  which  quickened  by  his 
Spirit,  would  be  affinity  with  all  worlds,  and  with 
everything  which  has  ever  happened  under  the  throne 
of  God.  "  The  Spirit  itself  beareth  witness  with  our 
spirit,  that  we  are  the  children  of  God ;  and  if  chil 
dren,  then  heirs,  heirs  of  God,  and  joint-heirs  with 
Christ." 


MIRACLES  AND   HUMAN  NATURE. 


AGAINST  the  probability  of  miracles,  or  of  "  signs 
and  wonders/'  ever  having  been  vouchsafed,  it  has 
been  objected  that  they  are  such  things  as  could  not 
always  and  everywhere,  and  to  all  men  be  equally 
credible  and  important.  And  so  it  is  supposed,  that 
the  miracles  of  the  Scriptures  are  inconsistent  with  the 
Providence  of  a  just  God,  unless  the  impression  made 
by  them  should  have  been  uniform  as  to  meaning  and 
authority,  from  the  time  of  the  eyewitnesses  to  the 
last  public  professions  by  Christian  converts  in  Mad 
agascar  and  China.  But  otherwise  are  all  men  im 
pressible  alike,  and  exactly  by  the  same  thing  ?  Is 
the  same  sensation  received  from  the  sun,  by  both 
Lapps  and  Bengalese  ?  Is  there  any  drug,  which  is 
uniform  as  to  strength  and  effect  on  persons  of  every 
age,  tribe,  and  region  ?  From  even  a  table  of  loga 
rithms,  would  a  uniform  impression  be  received  by 
everybody,  withinside  of  even  the  four  walls  of  a  mar 
ket-place  ?  And  from  any  chapter  of  the  Bible,  even 
though  read  by  the  best  reader,  are  there  two  hearers 
in  any  church  or  any  street,  who  would  receive  a  uni 
form  impression  ?  Also,  is  justice  the  less  certainly 
just,  because  of  the  Dyaks  of  Borneo  ?  Or  is  purity 
the  less  pure,  because  the  negroes  of  Bonny  are  not 
impressible  as  to  that  virtue,  equally  with  the  best 


286  MIRACLES  AND  HUMAN  NATURE. 

nuns  of  Rome,  or  with  Christian  matrons  radiant  with 
"  the  beauty  of  holiness  "  ?  The  miracles  of  the  Scrip 
tures  are  for  all  men,  but  only  just  as  everything  spirit 
ual  and  intellectual,  is  for  everybody.  And  indeed  the 
full  meaning  of  miracles  can  be  developed,  only  as  they 
are  differently  apprehended  by  different  minds,  by  Ori- 
gen  and  Augustine,  by  Bossuet,  Fenelon  and  Pascal, 
by  Jeremy  Taylor,  Robert  Barclay,  Swedenborg  and 
Neander. 

It  is  even  possible,  that  the  resurrection  of  Jesus, 
may  be  more  significant  to-day,  than  it  was  on  that 
"  first  day  of  the  week,"  and  that  it  may  be  better  be 
lieved  at  this  time,  after  eighteen  hundred  years,  than 
it  was  even  by  those  who  "  departed  quickly  from  the 
sepulchre  with  fear  and  great  joy,  and  did  run  to  bring 
his  disciples  word."  And  indeed  there  seems,  at  this 
present  time,  to  be  forming  such  a  philosophy  of  the 
Intellectual  Universe,  as  that  in  the  light  of  it,  the 
fragmentary  account  of  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  will 
glow  with  that  newness  of  meaning,  which  will  be  its 
own  sufficient  evidence  as  to  truth.  And  already  on 
some  minds  there  dawns  a  light,  in  which  it  seems  as 
though  reaffirmed  from  above,  when  it  is  read,  "  And, 
behold,  there  was  a  great  earthquake :  for  the  angel  of 
the  Ix>rd  descended  froni  heaven,  and  came  and  rolled 
back  the  stone  from  the  door,  and  sat  upon  it.  His 
countenance  was  like  lightning,  and  his  raiment  white 
as  snow,  and  for  fear  of  him  the  keepers  did  shake,  and 
became  as  dead  men.  And  the  angel  answered  and 
said  unto  the  women,  "  Fear  not  ye  :  for  I  know  that  ye 
seek  Jesus,  which  was  crucified.  He  is  not  here  ;  for 
he  is  risen,  as  he  said.  Come,  see  the  place  where  the 


MIRACLES   AND  HUMAN  NATURE.  287 

Lord  lay  and  go  quickly,  and  tell  his  disciples  that  he 
is  risen  from  the  dead  ;  and,  behold,  he  goeth  before  you 
into  Galilee  :  there  shall  ye  see  him :  lo,  I  have  told 
you." 

In  its  relation  to  human  nature,  what  is  a  miracle  ? 
Simply  it  is  an  incident  which  happens  to  a  mortal 
through  his  immortal  connections.  At  the  mountain, 
by  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  when  Jesus  with  handling  five 
barley  loaves,  fed  five  thousand  men,  "  those  men,  when 
they  had  seen  the  miracle  that  Jesus  did,  said  This  is 
of  a  truth  that  prophet  that  should  come  into  the  world." 
But  the  next  day,  in  consequence  of  their  behavior, 
"  Jesus  answered  them  and  said,  Verily,  verily,  I  say 
unto  you,  ye  seek  me,  not  because  ye  saw  the  miracles, 
but  because  ye  did  eat  of  the  loaves,  and  were  filled." 
But  indeed  of  the  apostles  themselves,  the  night  after 
the  miracle,  it  is  written,  that  having  seen  Jesus  walk 
ing  on  the  sea,  in  a  storm,  and  having  taken  him  for 
a  spirit,  and  having  had  that  storm  subside  with  his 
mounting  their  ship,  "  they  were  sore  amazed  in  them 
selves  beyond  measure,  and  wondered.  For  they  con 
sidered  not  the  miracle  of  the  loaves  ;  for  their  heart 
was  hardened."  The  loaves  and  fishes  of  the  miracle 
had  been  wonderful  food,  but  yet  what  could  be  swal 
lowed  and  forgotten ;  but  if  the  miracle  had  been 
understood,  and  been  taken  for  "  a  sign  and  wonder," 
then  Jesus  would  at  once  have  been  known  as  "  the 
bread  which  cometh  down  from  heaven,  that  a  man 
may  eat  thereof,  and  not  die."  According  to  the  Scrip 
tures,  then,  a  miracle  might  be  food  for  the  body,  or  it 
might  be  a  cure  for  it ;  but  when  "  spiritually  discerned," 
it  was  also  "  a  sign  "  as  to  realms  and  connections  out 
side  of  the  range  of  "  the  natural  man." 


288  MIRACLES   AND   HUMAN  NATURE. 

It  is  the  Scriptural  philosophy  as  to  human  nature, 
that  man  is  both  body  and  soul ;  and  that  though 
born  into  this  world,  he  belongs  to  a  world  which  is  to 
come ;  and  that  he  is  capable,  even  on  this  earth,  of 
being  born  again.  This  is  man  as  he  is  known  to  "  the 
Shepherd  and  Bishop  of  your  souls  " ;  and  also  as  he  is 
created  by  the  Father  Almighty,  who  numbers,  every 
moment,  everywhere,  the  hairs  of  every  head,  whilst 
yet,  also,  he  is  the  circumference  of  the  universe  as  to 
power,  and  is  also  Providence  to  "the  young  ravens 
when  they  cry." 

Miracles  have  occurred  to  men,  not  unnaturally,  but 
conformably  to  their  nature.  A  spirit  living  and  mov 
ing  in  a  marvellous  clothing  of  flesh,  —  that  is  what 
man  is.  A  man  in  a  diving-suit,  weighed  down  to  the 
floor  of  the  ocean,  and  exploring  it,  but  endowed  with 
faculties  by  which  he  would  be  more  completely  at 
home  in  the  upper  air,  hints  to  us  the  condition  of  the 
human  being,  as  he  ploughs  the  earth,  and  journeys 
about  it,  endowed  the  while  with  faculties,  by  which  he 
may  be  perhaps  free  of  the  heavens,  and  rich  in  instincts 
which  never  here  leave  him  quiet  as  to  his  hereafter. 
"  For  we  know  that  if  our  earthly  house  of  this  taber 
nacle  were  dissolved,  we  have  a  building  of  God,  a 
house  not  made  with  hands,  eternal  in  the  heavens. 
For  in  this  we  groan,  earnestly  desiring  to  be  clothed 
upon  with  our  house  which  is  from  heaven :  if  so  be 
that  being  clothed,  we  shall  not  be  found  naked." 

Instead  of  aspiring  to  what  is  above,  and  living  by 
aspiration,  we  may  try  to  accommodate  ourselves  to 
our  immediate  circumstances,  and  propose  to  "  live  by 
bread  alone,"  and  with  only  such  thoughts  and  feelings, 


MIRACLES  AND  HUMAN  NATURE.  289 

as  are  akin  to  daily  bread  of  our  own  procuring.  But 
in  so  doing,  we  can  live  only,  as  creatures  of  the  earth, 
earthy.  For,  by  our  better  nature,  there  is  always  in 
us  a  hunger  "  for  that  meat  which  endureth  unto  ever 
lasting  life,  which  the  Son  of  man  shall  give  unto  you." 
And  as  to  this  spiritual  meat  being  within  our  reach, 
and  as  to  the  "  well  of  water  springing  up  into  everlast 
ing  life,"  perhaps  miracles,  rightly  understood,  always 
are  suggestions  or  proofs.  This,  even  the  woman  of 
Samaria  would  seem  to  have  felt,  as,  humble  and  igno 
rant,  she  talked  with  Jesus  by  the  well.  And  indeed 
always,  the  more  a  man  has  "  tasted  the  good  word  of 
God,  and  the  powers  of  the  world  to  come,"  the  more 
confident  must  he  be  of  that  world,  as  being  his  natural 
and  predestined  home.  "  For  the  Spirit  itself,"  —  and 
therefore,  also,  all  its  gifts,  whether  prophecy,  or  the 
gifts  of  healing,  or  faith,  or  the  working  of  miracles,  — 
"  the  Spirit  itself  beareth  witness  with  our  spirit,  that 
we  are  the  children  of  God." 

In  the  book  of  Deuteronomy  there  is  to  be  read, 
what  was  affirmed  anew  by  Jesus,  when  he  "  was  led 
up  of  the  Spirit  into  the  wilderness,  to  be  tempted  of 
the  devil "  ;  and  when  "  he  answered  and  said,  It  is 
written,  man  shall  not  live  by  bread  alone,  but  by 
every  word  that  proceedeth  out  of  the  mouth  of  God." 
And  by  this  text,  it  would  seem  to  be  implied  that  man 
lives,  at  his  best,  contingently  on  a  dispensing  will, 
which  is  higher  than  nature,  and  not  merely  by  such 
laws  of  nature  as  fulfil  upon  him  the  prediction,  "  In 
the  sweat  of  thy  face  shalt  thou  eat  bread,  till  thou  re 
turn  unto  the  ground ;  for  out  of  it  wast  thou  taken. 

That  there  is  spiritually  any  higher  source  of  thought 
13  s 


290  MIRACLES  AND  HUMAN  NATURE. 

for  us  than  nature,  and  any  other  inspiration  for  us 
than  from  surrounding  nature  and  fellow-creatures,  is 
denied  by  implication,  when  the  possibility  of  miracles 
is  denied.  And  the  possibility  of  miracles  is  denied, 
because  of  what  is  fancied  must  be  the  inviolable  uni 
formity  of  the  laws  of  nature.  And  this  is  said  and 
done,  as  though  all  the  forces  and  properties  and  con 
tingencies  and  affinities  of  nature,  and  the  whole  broad 
field  of  it  also,  were  as  familiarly  known  as  what  a 
player  relies  upon  for  his  game  at  a  billiard-table. 

For  the  universe  there  are  laws,  some  palpable,  and 
others  which  are  more  or  less  occult,  and  there  are 
some  laws,  which,  as  blood  in  the  veins,  are  like  laws 
within  laws ;  and  of  these  laws  there  are  some  which 
have  affinities  for  one  another,  and  some  which  are 
mutually  repellant.  And  from  all  the  agency  and  in 
tercommunication  of  these  laws,  it  results  that  the 
material  universe  is  sustained  and  quickened  by  laws 
innumerable,  for  which  as  a  whole,  spirit  is  the  name, 
and  no  other  word.  Spirit,  indeed,  in  the  full  sense 
of  the  word,  is  all  laws  in  one  :  and  God  is  spirit. 

But  God  manifests  himself  through  what  is  beneath 
him,  and  yet  mostly  perhaps  through  ranges  and 
spheres,  far  above  what  men  know  of.  But  in  our 
planetary  system,  and  in  this  earth,  his  creative  power 
operates  through  five,  ten,  fifty,  and  perhaps  hundreds 
of  separable,  distinguishable  manifestations,  which  may 
be  called  laws.  And  yet  because  of  their  four  or  five 
senses,  aided  one  of  them  by  glasses  telescopic  and 
microscopic,  there  are  men,  who  think  that  from  their 
personal  knowledge  of  the  ways  of  the  universe,  they 
can  positively  deny  the  possibility  of  a  miracle,  or  of 


MIRACLES  AND   HUMAN  NATURE.  291 

any  opening,  by  which  an  angel,  or  a  spirit  or  a  demon 
might  be  able  to  make  "  a  sign."     !   .  , 

A  man  denying  the  possibility  of  a  miracle,  is  a 
creature  of  yesterday  with  a  little  knowledge,  and  at 
the  best,  only  a  very  little,  who  yet  dogmatizes  about 
the  possibilities  of  the  infinite,  the  invisible,  and  the 
eternal. 

'Telescope  and  microscope  being  allowed  for  as  to 
their  powers,  and  anatomy,  chemistry,  and  geology  also ; 
and  botany  and  icthyology  and  palaeontology  being  fully 
credited  for  their  reports,  yet  the  words  of  Zophar  are 
no  less  pertinent  to-day  than  they  were  of  old,  though 
they  may  sound  somewhat  more  scornfully  now  than  as 
they  were  first  spoken  to  Job.  "  Canst  thou  by  search 
ing  find  out  God  ?  Canst  thou  find  out  the  Almighty 
unto  perfection  ?  It  is  as  high  as  heaven  ;  what  canst 
thou  do  ?  deeper  than  hell ;  what  canst  thou  know  ?  " 

High  as  heaven,  deep  as  hell,  —  how  possibly  could 
it  be  found  out  ?  And  miracles  are  hints,  suggestions 
vouchsafed  to  mortals,  as  to  the  inscrutable. 

But  how,  then,  is  a  man  to  know  a  miracle  when  it 
occurs  ?  He  may  know  it  by  his  astonishment.  For  a 
miracle  calls  itself  simply  a  wonder.  If  a  miracle  called 
itself,  or  if  the  Bible  described  it,  as  being  a  suspension 
of  the  laws  of  nature,  it  would,  of  course,  be  necessary 
to  know  altogether  about  all  the  laws  of  nature,  before 
there  could  be  any  certainty  as  to  whether  one  of  them 
were  suspended  or  not.  Generally,  in  the  Scriptures,  a 
miracle  is  a  wonder.  But "  a  sign  and  wonder  "  would 
seem  to  mean  something  more  express  than  the  vaguely 
wonderful,  and  to  be  indeed  a  significant  wonder,  "  a 
sign  from  heaven,"  or  possibly  elsewhere,  made  and 
given  for  a  particular  purpose. 


292  MIRACLES  AND   HUMAN  NATURE. 

And  it  is  at  this  point  that  the  subject  of  miracles 
becomes  serious. .  For,  as  to  the  miracles  of  the  Scrip 
tures,  there  are  persons  who  say,  as  they  would  say  also 
about  the  marvels  of  all  ages,  "  It  is  very  likely  that 
they  did  happen ;  for  all  laws  have  exceptions  which 
are  wonderful.  Also,  strange  things  certainly  do  hap 
pen,  but  always,  of  course,  according  to  the  laws  of 
nature.  Though  we  can  only  seldom  know  what  the 
strange  things  were  exactly,  and  still  less  can  we  ex 
actly  know  what  the  laws  of  nature  were,  which  may 
have  been  concerned."  These  persons  do  not  object  to 
miracles,  as  curious,  exceptional  facts,  and  especially 
when  ancient.  They  demur  only  to  the  essence  of  a 
miracle,  its  soul,  its  main  reason,  to  its  connection  with 
another  order  than  this  of  things  visible,  and  especially 
to  its  being  "  a  sign  "  made  or  given.  They  would  be 
willing  to  allow  that  perhaps  "  Stephen,  full  of  faith 
and  power,  did  great  wonders  and  miracles  among  the 
people."  And  miracles  in  connection  with  Jesus  Christ, 
they  would  think,  might  be  credited.  But  miracles 
with  an  earnest  meaning,  and  connected  with  God,  are 
what  they  cannot  agree  to,  as  being  likely.  They  can 
get  back  to  the  day  of  Pentecost.  They  are  even  ready 
to  believe  that  miracles  may  have  happened  ;  and  they 
can  get  within  hearing  of  the  appeal  of  St.  Peter,  "  Ye 
men  of  Israel,  hear  these  words ;  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  a 
man  approved  of  God  among  you  by  miracles,  wonders, 
and  signs,  which  God  did  by  him  in  the  midst  of  you, 
as  ye  also  know."  But  this  argument  they  cannot  as 
sent  to.  They  can  believe  in  a  miracle  as  a  marvel, 
but  not  as  "  a  sign,"  and  especially  as  vouchsafed  by 
God :  because  for  that  belief,  as  St.  Paul  would  say, 


MIRACLES  AND  HUMAN   NATURE.  293 

they  have  been  spoiled  "  through  philosophy  and  vain 
deceit,  after  the  tradition  of  men,  after  the  rudiments 
of  the  world."  They  can  assent  as  they  read,  "  and 
fear  came  upon  every  soul,  and  many  wonders  and 
signs  were  done  by  the  apostles."  They  can  believe 
that  miracles  and  wonderful  works  may  have  happened  ; 
but  that  they  were  started  as  signs  from  the  spirit 
ual  world  is  what  they  do  not  like  to  have  to  think. 
Yet  of  Paul  and  Barnabas  at  Iconium  it  is  written 
that  "Long  time  abode  they  speaking  boldly  in  the 
Lord,  which  gave  testimony  unto  the  word  of  his  grace, 
and  granted  signs  and  wonders  to  be  done  by  their 
hands."  So,  also,  they  can  acquiesce,  as  they  read 
about  Philip  in  the  city  of  Samaria,  "  And  the  people 
with  one  accord  gave  heed  unto  those  things  which 
Philip  spake,  hearing  and  seeing  the  miracles  which  he 
did."  But  the  following  verse  they  can  assent  to,  only 
on  the  supposition  of  its  being  ancient  and  obsolete 
phraseology.  "  For  unclean  spirits,  crying  with  loud 
voice,  came  out  of  many  that  were  possessed  with 
them."  Because  that  ever  the  other  world  was  so  near 
to  this,  as  to  let  out  upon  it  "  an  unclean  spirit,"  which 
could  enter  into  a  man  or  haunt  among  tombs,  is 
what  they  can  think  no  more  than  they  can  heartily 
believe  that  God  "  maketh  his  angels  spirits." 

Commonly  at  this  present  time,  religionists  think 
more  of  the  machinery  of  the  universe  than  of  the  uni 
verse  itself,  and  more  of  even  the  lowest  of  his  laws 
than  they  do  of  even  God  Most  High.  Whether  of 
demon,  ghost,  spirit,  angel,  Son  of  man  in  glory,  Father 
in  heaven,  or  any  other  spiritual  being  whatever,  that 
the  will  can  possibly  make  itself  felt  by  mortal  beings, 


294  MIRACLES   AND  HUMAN  NATURE. 

is  a  supposition  which  is  repugnant  to  the  philosophy 
of  the  day,  or  rather  to  the  prejudices  which  were 
created  by  science  when  it  was  young  and  insolent,  and 
very  ignorant  of  even  its  own  domain,  some  seventy  or 
eighty  years  ago.  That  the  universe,  and  that  even 
our  little  surrounding  world  may  have  many  properties 
of  which  there  is  nothing  known,  is  a  speculation  with 
which  science  easily  coincides,  notwithstanding  what 
some  of  its  professors  may  think.  The  ear,  the  eye,  and 
the  tip  of  the  finger  are  the  chief  channels  of  commu 
nication  with  the  universe  for  men,  by  their  state  of 
nature.  But  there  may  be  other  beings,  to  wrhom  this 
earth  may  be  another  thing  than  what  mortals  see ;  and 
to  whom  it  may  report  itself  in  ways,  of  which  man 
may  never  get  a  glimpse.  And,  conceivably,  these 
creatures  may  be  as  invisible  as  electricity  is  when  it 
is  latent ;  and  yet  for  movement  may  be  as  swift  as 
thunderbolts,  and,  as  regards  God,  be  even  familiar  with 
what  mortals  would  call  "the  hiding  of  his  power." 
Verily,  who  we  are,  and  what  we  are,  being  considered, 
there  is  a  way  of  arguing  from  even  our  human  igno 
rance,  which  is  truer,  more  just,  and  more  profitable, 
than  even  the  logic  of  science,  as  it  is  narrowed  by  some 
men. 

As  to  miracles  by  the  will  of  God,  being  incredible 
as  acts  of  divine  condescension  —  that  would  hardly 
seem  to  be  a  just  sentiment,  while  a  sparrow  cannot 
fall  to  the  ground  without  the  knowledge  of  the  Father 
in  heaven ;  while  the  lily  is  arrayed  in  glory  greater 
than  that  of  Solomon  ;  and  while  year  after  year,  an  in 
heritance  of  instinct  is  perpetuated  from  worm  to  worm 
in  the  ground.  While  the  glow-worm  shines,  and  while 


MIRACLES   AND   HUMAN  NATURE.  295 

the  young  ravens  are  fed  for  crying,  while  the  turtle, 
the  crane  and  the  swallow  are  shown  the  times  of  their 
coming,  it  may  well  seem  credible  as  to  man,  that 
"  the  inspiration  of  the  Almighty  "  should  be  his  under 
standing  ;  and  even  that,  as  he  draws  nigh  to  God,  he 
should  have  God  draw  nearer  to  him,  and  lend  him 
perhaps  his  finger  for  miracles,  and  have  him  pour  out 
of  his  Spirit  for  Pentecostal  purposes.  No  doubt,  as 
true  philosophy  widens,  some  words  also  will  widen 
and  deepen  in  meaning.  But  while  "father"  means 
father,  and  essentially  is  the  same  thing  in  Christian 
households,  and  among  aboriginal  savages,  the  word 
"  God  "  will  never  part  with  its  essential  meaning,  and 
will  continue  to  be,  for  condescension  and  love  and  as 
sistance,  wrhat  Paul  felt,  when  he  wrote  of  what  he  had 
been  as  an  apostle  "  through  mighty  signs  and  wonders, 
by  the  power  of  the  Spirit  of  God." 

But  it  is  questioned,  why  one  man  is  not  a  subject 
for  miracles,  or  an  agent,  as  well  as  another.  But  it 
might  as  well  be  asked  why  every  man  is  not  a  poet, 
and  why  poets  are  not  all  equal.  One  man  is  doomed 
by  his  constitution  to  die  at  his  thirtieth  year ;  while 
another  man  by  birth  is  heir  to  threescore  years  and 
thirty.  But  why  is  that  ?  As  to  ancient  Greece,  why 
were  not  the  periods  of  history  uniform  ;  why  did  not 
every  age  flower  with  names  as  great  and  rich  as  those 
of  Plato  and  ^Eschylus  ?  And  after  the  death  of  Eu 
ripides  or  the  last  speech  of  Demosthenes,  why  did  the 
inspiration  of  genius  fail ;  and  why  was  Pausanias  a 
mere  antiquarian  instead  of  being  inspired  like  Pindar  ? 
Why  a  thing  wonderful  is  not  repeated,  —  this,  instead 
of  being  the  first  objection  to  be  made  to  a  miracle, 


296  MIRACLES   AND  HUMAN  NATURE. 

would  seem  as  though  it  ought  to  be  even  the  last,  in 
accordance  with  human  experience  generally. 

As  to  the  probability  of  miracles  having  ever  oc 
curred  or  been  vouchsafed,  it  has  been  objected  that  a 
miracle,  with  advancing  intelligence,  cannot  continue 
to  be  of  the  same  importance,  as  at  the  time  of  its 
manifestation.  But  really  what  inconsideration  that  is  ! 
Shakespeare  is  a  greater  man  to-day  than  he  was  in 
his  own  age  :  and  so  is  Milton.  And  with  the  growth 
of  intellect,  and  the  widening  of  human  experience,  a 
miracle  instead  of  meaning  less,  may  actually  grow  to 
be  more  significant  with  the  lapse  of  time.  But  as  one 
miracle  may  gain  in  expression  with  the  widening  of 
science,  so  another  may  lose.  For  the  word  "  miracle," 
according  to  the  Scriptures,  is  a  general  word,  covering 
wonders  of  more  classes  than  one.  The  casting-out  of 
unclean  spirits  was  one  of  the  miraculous  works  of 
Jesus  Christ,  though  not  one  of  his  "  greater  works." 
But  to-day,  an  "  unclean  spirit,"  if  it  could  be  proved 
to  be  existing  within  human  cognizance,  would,  for  the 
Eoyal  Society  of  London,  be  as  great  "  a  sign  and  won 
der  "  as  even  "  though  one  rose  from  the  dead." 

"  But,"  says  the  modern  philosopher,  "  Oh,  but  un 
clean  spirits  are  absolutely  incredible,  being  so  utterly 
foreign  to  our  experience.  And  if  really  any  ever  did 
exist,  why  are  there  none  known  of  now  ? "  But  perhaps 
they  are  known  of,  though  not  very  widely  reported. 
Also,  if  there  be  any  virtue  in  Christianity,  ought  it  to 
be  expected  that  unclean  spirits  should  be  as  common 
a  nuisance  to-day  as  when  Jesus  Christ  and  the  early 
disciples  first  began  to  cast  them  out  ?  Also,  if  our 
human  world  changes,  may  we  not  also  suppose  that 


MIRACLES   AND   HUMAN   NATURE.  297 

there  may  be  changes  on  the  spiritual  borders  of  it,  and 
along  that  line,  which  "  unclean  spirits  "  anciently  were 
supposed  to  haunt  ?  These  questions  may  appear  to 
be  strange  ;  but  that  they  should  seem  so,  is  itself,  per 
haps,  a  still  stranger  thing.  But  indeed  as  to  strange 
ness,  what  is  there  which  can  be  greater  than  the  fact 
that  three,  four,  and  five  Christian  sects  should  be  in 
controversy  with  one  another  as  to  what  really  Chris 
tianity  itself  may  be  ? 

For  Dr.  Buchner  and  some  others,  according  to  their 
own  words,  clairvoyance  or  somnambulism,  or  a  per 
ception  of  a  road  or  a  book,  independently  of  the 
humors  of  the  eye,  would  be  a  miracle.  And  this 
would  be  because  of  what  they  think  they  know  by 
anatomy.  For  a  materialist  a  clairvoyant  is  as  great  a 
miracle  as  he  can  ever  be  shown.  But  for  a  Spirit 
ualist  a  clairvoyant  is  no  great  wonder,  even  though  he 
manifests  the  certainty  that  "  there  is  a  spirit  in  man  " 
by  showing  that,  with  bandaged  eyes,  there  may  be 
perfect  sight,  and  what  even  can  see  through  a  wall. 

Such  cures  as  were  wrought  through  the  Prince  Ho- 
henlohe,  in  Germany,  about  forty  years  ago,  were  be 
lieved  by  Catholics  to  be  miraculous.  But  at  present, 
cures  of  the  same  nature  with  those  of  the  German 
Prince  are  common,  at  the  hands  of  persons  who  are 
not  Catholics.  Be  it  allowed  that  they  are  done 
through  mesmerism :  but  that  would  mean  only  that 
they  are  wrought  through  a  faculty  which  was  partic 
ularly  strong  seventy  years  since,  in  a  man  by  the  name 
of  Mesmer.  But  that  faculty  would  better  have  been 
named  after  Greatrex  of  the  seventeenth  century,  only 
that  even  before  him  the  faculty  had  been  manifested 
13* 


298  MIRACLES  AND  HUMAN  NATURE. 

by  multitudes  of  persons,  not  of  one  country  only, 
nor  of  one  century  merely,  nor  even  of  simply  several 
regions  and  ages.  At  this  moment,  the  writer  hereof 
has  on  his  table  an  engraving,  in  which  St.  Philip  Neri, 
by  his  handling,  cures  Pope  Clement  the  Eighth  of  the 
gout.  According  to  the  Catholic  Church,  and  the  text 
which  accompanies  the  picture,  the  success  of  Philip 
Neri  was  a  miracle :  and  so  it  was,  in  a  higher  or  lower 
degree.  And  that  miracles  are  of  various  grades  as  to 
significance,  is  according  to  the  canons  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  and  the  estimate  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  the 
doctrine  of  the  Scriptures.  Miracles  of  healing  are 
more  frequent  to-day  than  they  were  in  the  age  of  St. 
Philip  Neri.  But  the  less  wonderful  miracles  of  any 
kind  become  by  frequency,  the  more  significant  also 
they  become  in  another  way.  Mesmerism  is  the  rec 
ognition  of  the  nervous  system  of  a  man,  as  being 
through  his  fingers,  more  or  less,  an  outlet  of  power, 
just  as  his  tongue  is.  And  to-day,  mesmerism,  with 
the  philosophy  thereof,  means,  that  after  thousands  of 
years,  men  have  attained  to  the  knowledge  of  there 
being  one  or  more  psychical  laws,  through  which  some 
persons,  under  some  circumstances  can  help  others 
medically. 

Among  the  Jews,  miracles  of  healing  were  accounted 
as  being  greater  or  less  in  themselves,  and  also  by  com 
parison,  as  when  it  was  written  of  Jesus,  that  "  he 
could  there  do  no  mighty  work,  save  that  he  laid  his 
hands  upon  a  few  sick  folk,  and  healed  them." 

That  miracles  should  ever  lose  in  force  by  becoming 
common,  is  an  inconsiderate,  unspiritual  fear.  For  that 
was  never  the  feeling  of  those  who  knew  best  about 


MIRACLES   AND   HUMAN  NATURE.  299 

miracles.  At  Taberah,  the  spirit  which  was  in  Moses 
had  been  imparted  by  the  Lord,  to  seventy  elders  of 
the  people,  stationed  about  the  tabernacle.  But  si 
multaneously  also  two  men  in  the  camp  prophesied. 
"  And  there  ran  a  young  man,  and  told  Moses  and  said, 
Eldad  and  Medad  do  prophesy  in  the  camp.  And 
Joshua  the  son  of  Nun,  the  servant  of  Moses,  one  of 
his  young  men,  answered  and  said,  My  Lord  Moses, 
forbid  them.  And  Moses  said  unto  him,  "Enviest 
thou  for  my  sake  ?  Would  God  that  all  the  Lord's 
people  were  prophets,  and  that  the  Lord  would  put  his 
spirit  upon  them  ! "  For  indeed  a  miracle  in  itself  is 
nothing  in  comparison  with  the  spiritual  universe,  as 
to  the  constitution  of  which,  it  is  "  a  sign."  As  argu 
ing  the  reality  of  a  spiritual  world  and  of  spiritual 
agencies  as  affecting  men,  miracles  never  possibly  can 
lose  their  meaning,  by  becoming  common,  any  more 
than  logarithms  by  use  would  dwindle  into  common 
arithmetic. 

The  more  common  of  the  phenomena  of  spiritualism 
may  reasonably  be  accounted  as  indisputable  facts. 
But  they  are  riot  equally  impressive  for  all  persons. 
For  by  them,  one  man  is  converted  instantly  from 
materialism  to  a  belief  in  spiritual  power  of  some  kind. 
While  another  man  can  be  astounded  by  them,  one 
day,  and  then,  the  next  day,  forget  utterly  what  an  as 
tonished  man  he  had  been,  and  a  third  person  will  ac 
knowledge  the  reality  of  the  marvels,  but  will  hold 
that  they  are  not  so  useful  or  suggestive  as  the  tat 
tooed  skull  of  a  Maori,  or  a  potsherd  from  the  mud 
of  the  Nile.  The  four  rules  of  arithmetic  have  the 
same  meaning  for  all  intelligent  beings,  but  a  poetic 


300  MIRACLES  AND   HUMAN  NATURE. 

phrase  has  not.  And  in  connection  with  Jesus  himself, 
men  were  affected  by  miracles,  some  in  one  way  and 
some  in  another.  Mcodemus  could  say,  "  Kabbi,  we 
know  that  thou  art  a  teacher  come  from  God ;  for  no 
man  can  do  these  miracles  that  thou  doest,  except  God 
be  with  him."  But  the  Pharisees  could  argue  and  say, 
"  This  fellow  doth  not  cast  out  devils,  but  by  Beelzebub 
the  prince  of  the  devils."  This  was  a  strange  diversity 
of  opinion  as  to  the  same  facts  ;  and  it  was  not  probably 
of  intellectual  origin,  but  moral ;  and  also  perhaps  not 
moral  merely.  "At  that  time,  Jesus  answered  and 
said,  I  thank  thee,  O  Father,  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth, 
because  thou  hast  hid  these  things  from  the  wise  and 
prudent,  and  hast  revealed  them  unto  babes."  And 
when  Simon  Peter  recognized  Jesus  as  being  the 
Christ,  Jesus  said,  "  Blessed  art  thou,  Simon  Bar-Jona ; 
for  flesh  and  blood  hath  not  revealed  it  unto  thee,  but 
my  Father  which  is  in  heaven."  Fearfully  and  wonder 
fully  we  are  made  ;  and  there  are  conditions  in  us,  both 
of  body  and  spirit,  which  may  have  accrued,  since  our 
birth,  quite  unaccountably;  and  through  which  one 
man  -is  strong  in  an  atmosphere,  by  which  another 
man  is  weakened  ;  and  through  which,  also,  one  per 
son  can  believe  only  a  very  little  beyond  what  he 
sees  ;  while  another,  being  receptive  of  "  the  spirit  of 
wisdom  and  revelation,"  sees  things,  the  eyes  of  his 
understanding  being  enlightened. 

It  illustrates  the  manner  in  which  the  ways  of 
thought  have  become  materialized,  that  some  such  a 
sentiment  as  this  can  be  published,  and  can  even  get 
the  acquiescence  of  persons,  whose  business  it  is  to 
know  better.  "As  to  the  being  of  a  God  and  his 


MIRACLES   AND   HUMAN  NATURE.  301 

character,  the  sons  of  science  must  ultimately  be  the 
judges.  And  their  verdict  will  have  to  depend  on  con 
troversies  and  inquiries  which  are  already  initiated." 
What  a  notion  !  "  Who  is  this  that  darkeneth  counsel 
by  words  without  knowledge  ? "  Almost  it  is  the  spirit 
of  the  age,  and  what  might  reply  for  itself  in  the  words 
with  which  Jesus  Christ  was  answered  by  a  demoniac, 
when  "  he  asked  him,  What  is  thy  name  ?  And  he 
answered,  saying,  My  name  is  Legion :  for  we  are 
many."  Wait  for  geologists  to  tell  whether  there  is  a 
God  or  not !  Does  not  the  human  soul  know  about 
that,  as  well  as  ever  it  can  be  known  ?  It  might  as 
well  be  said,  before  loving  their  babies,  that  women 
should  wait  for  science  to  justify  them,  as  to  the  reason 
ableness  of  the  maternal  instinct.  A  man  who  does 
not  feel  God  can  never  find  him.  And  it  is  only  as  a 
child  of  God  that  ever  a  man  can  possibly  know  of  the 
Father  in  heaven,  however  great  his  science  may  be. 
God  is  not  at  the  end  of  a  telescope,  nor  to  be  dis 
covered  by  search  among  the  primitive  rocks.  God  is 
an  instinct  for  us,  or  else  he  is  nowhere.  Wait  for 
what  science  may  say,  while  the  human  soul  itself  is 
higher  evidence  as  to  God  than  all  surrounding  nature  ! 
Words  of  prophecy,  and  of  the  highest,  and  as  true  as 
nature  itself,  and  as  simple,  are  these  :  "  Zion  said,  The 
Lord  hath  forsaken  me,  and  my  Lord  hath  forgotten 
me.  Can  a  woman  forget  her  sucking  child,  that  she 
should  not  have  compassion  on  the  son  of  her  womb  ? 
Yea,  they  may  forget,  yet  will  I  not  forget  thee." 

A  scientific  examination,  completely  successful,  will 
report  God  as  he  is  to  the  stars,  and  as  he  was  at  the 
composition  of  the  rocks  of  the  primitive  and  the  last 


302  MIRACLES  AND  HUMAN  NATURE. 

formations,  and  as  he  still  is  for  what  power  he  endows 
the  whirlwind  with.  What  God  is  to  the  worm  may 
be  learned  from  the  worm  perhaps ;  and  what  also  he 
is  to  the  cricket  in  the  grass  may  be  learned  by  the 
study  of  its  habits. 

"  But  ask  now  the  beasts,  and  they  shall  teach  thee ; 
and  the  fowls  of  the  air,  and  they  shall  tell  thee  :  or 
speak  to  the  earth,  and  it  shall  teach  thee ;  and  the 
fishes  of  the  sea  shall  declare  unto  thee."  But  rocks 
and  barnacles,  birds,  beasts,  and  fowls,  the  sea,  and  the 
sands  upon  the  sea-shore,  lilies  of  the  field,  and  cedars 
like  those  of  Lebanon,  —  these  things  all,  individually 
and  conjointly,  can  report  no  more  as  to  God  than 
what  they  can,  than  what  they  have  experienced.  And 
what  are  they  all,  altogether,  with  all  their  properties 
and  qualities  combined,  in  comparison  with  a  human 
soul? 

What  God  is  to  the  human  soul  must  be  something 
more  than  he  is  to  all  external  nature,  and  be  therefore, 
probably,  something  even  more  hopeful. 

That  which  God  is  to  the  human  body  may  be  in 
ferred  from  those  laws  of  nature,  by  which  man  is  akin 
to  nature.  But  what  God  is  to  the  soul  there  is  nothing 
in  nature  to  suggest,  and  therefore  also  nothing  to  limit. 

Of  God  in  the  realm  of  spirit  a  mere  scientist  can 
know  nothing  from  the  study  of  rocks,  beetles,  and 
astronomy,  though  the  prophet  indeed  can  speak  of 
him  from  inspiration,  and  the  true  poet,  in  his  highest, 
happiest  mood,  from  intuition. 

God  is  more  to  a  butterfly  than  he  is  to  Mount 
Ararat ;  and  he  is  more  to  an  eagle  than  to  a  butterfly, 
and  he  is  more  to  "  the  natural  man  "  than  he  is  to  any 


MIRACLES   AND   HUMAN  NATURE.  303 

eagle.  And  to  man  through  his  spirit  God  is  more 
than  he  is  through  his  body.  And  so  there  may  be 
methods  of  God  with  man,  and  expectations  from  him 
and  transcendent  hopes,  which  may  be  worthy  of  all 
trust,  notwithstanding  that  nothing  like  them  has  ever 
been  experienced  by  dogs  or  oxen,  or  been  even  hinted 
by  geology. 

But  it  may  be  asked,  perhaps,  whether  it  is  not 
written  that  even  a  sparrow  cannot  fall  to  the  ground 
without  the  knowledge  of  God.  And  certainly  and 
happily  it  is  to  be  read  so,  and  in  a  connection,  also, 
from  which  it  might  be  inferred  that  even  its  feathers 
may  be  all  numbered.  And,  no  doubt,  the  sparrow 
was  one  of  the  fowls  of  the  air  which  Jesus  pointed  to, 
as  neither  sowing  nor  reaping,  but  as  being  fed  by  the 
Heavenly  Father.  Also  in  one  of  the  Psalms  it  is  to  be 
read  of  how  the  sparrows  had  built  about  the  temple. 
"  Yea,  the  sparrow  hath  found  a  house,  and  the  swallow 
a  nest  for  herself,  where  she  may  lay  her  young,  even 
thine  altars,  0  Lord  of  hosts,  my  King  and  my  God." 
But,  in  the  Scriptures,  are  men  and  sparrows  referred 
to  in  the  same  tone  ?  In  the  Bible  is  not  man  recog 
nized  as  having  faculties,  susceptibilities,  and  for  God 
Almighty  an  interest,  such  as  the  sparrow,  the  stork  in 
the  heaven,  the  crane,  and  the  swallow  have  not  ?  "0 
Lord,  thou  hast  searched  me  and  known  me.  Thou 
knowest  my  down-sitting  and  mine  up-rising  :  thou 
understandest  my  thought  afar  off.  Thou  compassest 
my  path  and  my  lying  down,  and  art  acquainted  with 
all  my  ways  :  for  there  is  not  a  word  in  my  tongue,  but 
lo,  0  Lord,  thou  knowest  it  altogether.  Thou  hast  beset 
me  behind  and  before,  and  laid  thy  hand  upon  me. 


304  MIRACLES   AND  HUMAN  NATURE. 

Such  knowledge  is  too  wonderful  for  me ;  it  is  high  ;  I 
cannot  attain  unto  it.  Whither  shall  I  go  from  thy 
'  Spirit  ?  or  whither  shall  I  flee  from  thy  presence  ? " 

David  was  more  to  God  than  the  sparrow  of  which 
he  sang  in  his  psalm.  And  the  sparrow,  chirping  and 
feeding,  and  the  same  from  age  to  age,  for  what  divine 
care  it  may  exemplify,  is  surely  no  argument  as  to 
human  experience  of  God,  as  regards  either  uniformity 
or  miracles.  Nor  rightly  can  it  be,  by  its  monotony 
of  life,  any  presumption  against  the  possibility  of  there 
having  been  "  signs  and  wonders  "  in  connection  with 
"  Paul,  a  servant  of  Jesus  Christ,  called  to  be  an  apostle, 
separated  unto  the  gospel  of  God,"  or  with  the  early 
Christians,  as  they  watched  the  fall  of  the  Eoinan 
Empire,  or  with  George  Fox,  as  he  waited  for  the 
Spirit,  or  with  John  Wesley,  in  his  newness  of  life, 
after  he  had  been  "  born,  not  of  blood,  nor  of  the  will 
of  the  flesh,  but  of  God." 

After  a  sensible,  good  man  has  learned  everything 
which  is  to  be  learned  from  ornithology  and  palaeon 
tology,  then  let  him  correspond  with  the  mind  of  Christ, 
and  he  will  learn  that  he  is  of  more  value  than  many 
sparrows,  and  that  he  therefore  is  probably  treated  in 
more  ways  than  sparrows  are,  and  for  more  wants  than 
they  have,  by  the  Maker  of  both  men  and  sparrows, 
and  of  all  things  visible  and  invisible. 

The  laws  by  which  the  sphere  of  nature  wTas  rounded, 
and  was  filled  with  things  animate  and  inanimate,  are 
no  evidence  as  to  the  susceptibilities  and  connections 
of  man  as  a  living  soul,  within  reach  of  the  Spirit,  and 
liable  to  temptation. 

As  to  the  operation  of  the  Spirit  on  human  souls, 


MIRACLES  AND  HUMAN   NATURE.  305 

there  is  nothing  to  be  argued  from  the  chemistry  of  the 
body,  any  more  than  the  law  of  gravitation  can  hint  as 
to  the  manner  in  which  the  lightning  flashes,  or  the 
electric  current  darts  and  strikes. 

As  to  whether  Moses  and  Elijah  could  ever  have 
been  visited  by  angels,  there  can  rightly  be  no  hint 
expected  from  rocks  and  fossils,  unless  it  can  first  be 
shown  that  those  rocks  and  fossils,  at  some  time  in 
their  history,  were  what  angels  could  have  talked  with 
by  the  Divine  permission. 

The  providence  of  God,  as  sparrows  can  experience 
it,  through  the  laws  of  nature,  cannot  be  the  measure 
of  that  providence,  as  it  adapts  itself  to  living  souls, 
and  wraps  man  about  with  a  care,  which  death  is  not 
to  end,  but  only  to  manifest.  And  whatever  the  con 
nections  of  man  may  be  through  his  body  with  nature 
and  seed-time  and  harvest,  it  is  yet  not  inconsistent 
with  them  all,  that  at  one  time  "  man  did  eat  angels' 
food." 

There  are  Christian  divines  —  blind  leaders  of  the 
blind,  surely  —  who  hope  to  have  the  miracles  of  the 
Bible  made  more  credible,  by  the  result  of  a  scientific 
controversy,  as  to  whether  creation  occurred  by  de 
velopment  or  by  stages.  But  really,  whether  God  made 
the  world  with  his  right  hand  or  with  his  left,  though 
a  very  curious  inquiry,  cannot  possibly  be  any  new 
light  as  to  the  way  in  which  he  may  have  treated 
primeval  man  when  "  he  led  him  about,  he  instructed 
him,  he  kept  him  as  the  apple  of  his  eye." 

By  his  free  will,  or  what  feels  like  it,  a  man  can  turn 
and  twist  himself  intellectually,  to  strange  effect,  and 
can  get  himself  bewildered  by  curious  fantasies,  and 


306  MIRACLES   AND   HUMAN   NATURE. 

can  even  become  like  the  absurdity  of  clay  upon  the 
wheel  criticising  the  mind  of  the  potter.  At  this 
present  time  there  are  hundreds  of  persons  who  think 
that,  for  acuteness,  they  are  intelligences  of  mysterious 
growth,  because  they  can  ask  themselves  the  question, 
"  Has  God  self-consciousness  ;  or  is  the  Godhead  a 
blind  force  ? "  But  actually,  ability  for  asking  that 
question  was  attained  long  ago,  and  twenty-five  hun 
dred  years  since  was  derided  by  a  prophet  in  a  text, 
which  combines  the  subtlest  philosophy  with  the  rarest 
wit :  "  Woe  unto  him  that  striveth  with  his  Maker ! 
Let  the  potsherd  strive  with  the  potsherds  of  the  earth. 
Shall  the  clay  say  to  him  that  fashioneth  it,  What 
makest  tliou  ?  or  thy  work,  he  hath  no  hands  ? "  And 
what  is  there  so  like  that  fancy  of  ancient  prophecy  as 
the  modern  objection  ?  "A  miracle  !  God  allow  a 
miracle  !  Does  not  God  live  and  act  by  laws  ?  "  And 
to  this  question  the  answer  is,  "  Yes,  by  laws,  and  even 
also  by  his  Spirit,  which  is  like  a  combination  of  all 
laws  in  one." 

By  his  senses,  which  are  only  four  or  five,  man  is 
limited  as  to  his  outlook  on  the  universe  scientifically, 
as  though  he  perceived  it,  for  its  grandeur  and  circum 
ference,  merely  through  a  loop-hole.  And  yet,  every  now 
and  then,  somebody,  who  has  learned  all  that  he  knows 
within  seventy  years,  turns  round  on  the  public  as  an 
observer,  to  dogmatize  in  a  manner  which  an  archangel 
would  never  attempt,  even  among  mortals.  "  An  angel ! 
This  world  is  everywhere  impervious  to  his  entrance, 
and  always  must  have  been.  A  miracle  !  It  is  con 
trary  to  experience.  A  spirit  appear !  That  is  im 
possible,  because  of  the  laws  of  matter,  and  because  of 


MIRACLES   AND   HUMAN  NATURE.  307 

surrounding  matter,  earthy  and  atmospheric.  Science 
is  the  true  light ;  and  apostles  and  prophets  were  not 
scientific  persons."  As  to  effect,  this  is  a  speech  which 
is  often  made  in  public,  and  yet  for  confidence  in  self- 
assertion  it  is  what  would  not  become  even  a  seraph, 
and  "  how  much  less  man,  that  is  a  worm,  and  the  son 
of  man,  which  is  a  worm." 

Goethe  was  a  singular  combination  of  worldly 
shrewdness,  scientific  perception,  and  poetic  faculty. 
And,  considering  the  manner  of  man  he  was,  he  was 
still  more  remarkable  for  what  spiritual  insight  he  had. 
Probably  there  is  not  a  theological  speculation  of  the 
present  day,  and  of  scientific  origin,  with  which  his 
thoughts  were  not  familiar.  And  he  said,  once,  what 
may  be  considered  as  clenching  all  the  vague,  wander 
ing  argument  of  the  present  time  as  to  the  being  of  a 
God.  And  never  did  he  say  anything  more  character 
istic  of  himself.  It  is  a  verdict  on  the  evidences  of 
religion,  when  estimated  at  their  lowest. 

Argued  out  from  history,  and  from  the  make  of  the 
world,  and  from  human  nature,  there  are  certain  lines 
of  thought  which  converge  at  what  cannot  be  anything 
else  than  a  throne,  whether  thunderbolts  be  launched 
from  it  or  not,  and  even  though  at  present  there  be  round 
about  it  the  silence  of  that  state  wherein  one  day  is 
"  as  a  thousand  years,  and  a  thousand  years  as  one  day." 

And  very  likely  it  was  in  rebuke  of  some  scoffers 
that  Goethe  said  what  has  been  referred  to,  and  which 
was  this,  "  If  there  be  not  a  God  now,  there  will  be  one 
day." 

Is  daring  speculation,  then,  at  its  best,  preclusive  of 
the  subject  of  miracles  ?  It  is  anything  but  that.  And 


308  MIRACLES   AND   HUMAN  NATURE. 

really  from  the  direction  and  the  depth  whence  we, 
human  beings  begin  our  aspiring  path,  which  is  from 
glory  to  glory,  it  cannot  be  otherwise  than  that  our 
ascension  should  be  distinguished  and  solemnized  by 
"  signs  and  wonders." 


MIRACLES  AND   PNEUMATOLOGY. 


THERE  is,  of  course,  a  science  of  spirit,  as  certainly 
as  there  is  of  nature.  And  even  if  it  should  be 
thought  to  be  utterly  inscrutable  by  men,  it  yet  must 
exist  somewhere;  and  no  doubt  it  is  well  known  to 
"  Michael  the  archangel,"  and  to  Raphael  and  the  rest 
of  "  the  seven  holy  angels,  which  present  the  prayers 
of  the  saints,  and  which  go  in  and  out  before  the  glory 
of  the  Holy  One." 

However  men  may  think  or  despair  about  it,  pneu- 
matology  must  exist  somewhere,  as  certainly  as  geology 
does,  or  astronomy.  And  why  should  it  be  inconceiv 
able  that  men  should  learn  it,  to  that  humble  extent, 
which  immediately  concerns  mortals  ?  Science  as  to 
the  soul  would  not  seem  to  be  any  more  improbable 
of  attainment,  than  formerly  science  was  as  to  the  body, 
and  as  to  those  laws  by  which  the  body  for  its  wonder 
ful  make  is  only  less  wonderful  than  a  spirit  itself. 
It  is  a  subject,  however,  which  has  been  so  confused 
and  embroiled  as  scarcely  even  to  be  mentionable  ; 
though  it  may  yet  really,  perhaps,  be  very  simple.  But 
often  simplicity  is  more  bewildering  than  art.  And 
continually,  as  to  spiritual  things,  it  is  as  it  was  at 
Chorazin  and  Capernaum,  in  the  time  of  Christ,  when 
they  were  revealed  unto  babes,  while  kept  hid  from 
the  wise  and  prudent. 


310  MIRACLES   AND   PNEUMATOLOGY. 

Pneumatology,  as  the  method  by  which  the  universe 
is  informed!  with  spirit  and  divinely  governed,  is  cer 
tainly  an  impossible  attainment  for  us  "  living  crea 
tures  " ;  nor  perhaps  will  any  mere  mortal  ever  fully 
understand  that  occurrence  in  the  spiritual  world  of 
which  Daniel  was  told  in  a  vision,  by  a  man  with  a 
face  like  lightning,  and  with  a  voice  like  the  voice  of 
a  multitude.  "  Then  said  he  unto  me,  Fear  not,  Daniel ; 
for  from  the  first  day  that  thou  didst  set  thy  heart  to 
understand,  and  to  chasten  thyself  before  thy  God,  thy 
words  were  heard,  and  I  am  come  for  thy  words.  But 
the  Prince  of  the  kingdom  of  Persia  withstood  me  one 
and  twenty  days :  but,  lo,  Michael,  one  of  the  chief 
princes,  came  to  help  me  ;  and  I  remained  there  with 
the  kings  of  Persia.  Now  I  am  come  to  make  thee 
understand  what  shall  befall  thy  people  in  the  latter 
days  :  for  yet  the  vision  is  for  many  days." 

At  the  time  of  this  vision,  and  with  a  view  to  it, 
Daniel  had  been  abstaining  from  flesh  and  wine  for 
three  weeks.  When  the  vision  occurred,  the  men  who 
were  present  saw  nothing,  but  they  felt  what  made 
them  quake  and  run  away.  Daniel  himself  lost  all  his 
strength,  and  lay  on  the  ground  in  what  is  called  a 
deep  sleep.  But  the  sleep  was  a  state  in  which  he 
could  hear  and  speak  and  remember.  His  body  was 
asleep  in  all  its  senses,  probably ;  while  his  spirit  was 
awake,  and  therefore  conscious.  For  a  few  minutes, 
perhaps,  and  by  an  experience  like  the  beginning  of 
death,  Daniel  was  in  a  state  in  which  he  could  talk 
with  angels,  like  one  of  themselves,  and  see  them  with 
the  eye  of  his  immortal  spirit,  and  hear  them  with  his 
inward  spiritual  ear. 


MIRACLES   AND   PNEUMATOLOGY.  311 

Pneumatology  may  not  be  able  at  present,  to  ex 
plain  every  word  which  an  angel  may  have  spoken  on 
earth,  nor  to  disclose  the  higher  mysteries  of  the  spirit 
ual  world,  nor  to  make  us  understand  what  exactly  was 
meant  as  to  angelic  superintendence,  where  it  was  said 
to  Daniel  in  the  vision,  "  I  will  show  thee  that  which 
is  noted  in  the  scripture  of  truth.  And  there  is  none 
that  holdeth  with  me  in  these  things,  but  Michael, 
your  prince."  But  pneumatology  can  suggest  the  man 
ner  by  which  Daniel  was  able  to  talk  with  "one  like 
the  appearance  of  a  man  "  ;  and  it  can  adduce  classical 
narratives  and  monastic  annals,  and  medical  experience, 
and  the  facts  of  animal  magnetism,  to  illustrate  from 
the  mortal  side  what  that  deep  sleep  was,  by  which 
there  were  spirits  about  him,  as  he  "  was  by  the  side 
of  the  great  river,  which  is  Hiddekel." 

The  New  Testament  presupposes  the  pneumatology 
of  the  Old  Testament ;  and  there  can  never  be  a  right 
understanding  of  the  New  Testament,  until  for  faculties, 
susceptibilities,  and  hopes,  the  human  soul  is  thought 
of,  agreeably  to  that  opinion  of  it,  which  was  held  in 
common  by  Jesus  and  his  first  disciples,  and  along 
with  them,  by  St.  Paul,  as  he  wrote  his  epistles.  There 
are  Christians  who  philosophically  are  materialists,  and 
who  hold  that  man  is  only  organized  matter,  and  that 
indeed  the  word  soul,  as  it  is  used  in  the  Scriptures,  is 
a  synonyme  for  a  human  body.  And  there  are  spirit 
ualists  who  are  strongly  opposed  to  these  materialistic 
Christians ;  yet  for  whom  the  soul  is  in  the  body,  but 
like  a  pip  in  the  core  of  an  apple.  Joseph  Priestley 
was  a  materialist ;  yet  his  dogma  as  to  the  constitution 
of  human  nature  would  include  in  its  sphere  all  the 


312  MIRACLES   AND   PNEUMATOLOGY. 

spiritualism  worthy  of  being  mentioned,  of  more  than 
half  of  his  opponents.  It  is  a  common  experience,  and  a 
common  confession,  with  laymen  of  clear,  discriminat 
ing  minds,  and  especially  if  they  have  been  legally 
trained,  that  they  can  read  the  Scriptures  readily  and 
well,  for  all  the  ends  of  piety  and  morals  ;  but  that  con 
tinually  at  words  and  points  of  great  interest,  percep 
tion  seems  to  fail  them.  And  that  failure  is  for  want 
of  pneumatology. 

There  is  to  be  read,  "  The  word  of  the  Lord,  that  came 
unto  Hosea,  the  son  of  Beeri."  An  intelligent  reader, 
with  such  earnestness  as  has  availed  him  in  commerce, 
or  with  such  courage  as  has  sustained  him  in  deep  in 
vestigations,  feels  rightly,  that  it  might  be  a  half  of  the 
worth  of  the  message  to  know  how  it  came,  and  was 
apprehended  as  being  divine.  A  rationalist  may  tell  him 
that  the  word  of  the  Lord  is  a  figure  of  speech,  and  a 
bishop  may  advise  him  to  trust  the  words  blindly. 
But  as  a  sensible  layman,  even  though  unable  to  see 
any  better  than  his  advisers,  he  will  know  them  both, 
for  blind  leaders  of  the  blind,  certain  of  falling  into 
a  ditch.  Whereas  a  man,  who  knows  when  it  is  dark 
about  him,  and  who  also  believes  in  light  and  in  its 
coming,  will  some  time,  with  patience,  find  himself  in 
the  porch  of  that  temple  of  truth,  where  the  Lord  is 
the  nearer  for  being  called  upon ;  and  wherein  are  ways 
which  are  not  as  the  ways  of  men ;  and  from  the  steps 
of  which  once,  "  holy  men  of  God  spake  as  they  were 
moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost "  ;  and  withinside  of  which, 
in  some  coming  age,  according  to  the  prophets,  men 
even  yet  "  shall  be  all  taught  of  God." 

There  is  a  pneumatology  implied  in  the  Scriptures, 


MIRACLES   AND   PNEUMATOLOGY.  313 

however  latent  it  may  be  in  this  materialistic  age ;  and 
it  is  of  the  utmost  importance.  What  would  the  epistles 
of  Paul  be,  without  the  Old  Testament  being  to  be 
known  of  ?  And  the  Old  Testament  again  cannot  be 
fully  understood  apart  from  the  knowledge  which  it 
presupposes  as  to  its  earliest  readers  ;  and  which,  in 
deed,  was  a  pneumatology  according  to  which  false 
gods  might  be  actual  beings,  and  as  an  effect  of  which 
men  were  predisposed  to  believe  in  the  supernatural  or 
the  spiritually  wonderful,  rather  than  to  feel,  as  many 
men  boast  of  themselves,  at  present,  "  I  would  not  be 
lieve  it,  even  if  I  saw  it ;  no,  not  I ! " 

Of  this  science  of  the  soul,  the  Catholic  Church  has 
always  had  something,  while  Protestants  have  never 
held  anything  definitely  and  unanimously.  And  there 
fore  as  fronting  the  Pope,  always  Protestants  have  been 
a  discordant  host.  And  among  them  all,  in  these  latter 
days,  the  most  dissonant  have  been  people  eminent 
for  science,  or  divines  with  a  predilection  for  it,  and 
who  have  been  persons  acted  upon  in  a  way,  which 
Paul  knew  of,  when  "  the  world  by  wisdom  knew  not 
God." 

Science,  or  information  about  the  ways  of  God  in 
matter,  or  with  bees  and  elephants,  is  at  the  most  but 
a  mere  hint  as  to  the  power,  and  intelligence,  and  will, 
and  intentions  of  Him  who,  from  outside  of  nature,  and 
from  above  it  all,  proclaims  as  to  souls  held  in  it,  at 
school,  "  Behold,  all  souls  are  mine  :  as  the  soul  of  the 
father,  so  also  the  soul  of  the  son  is  mine."  And  un 
sophisticated  souls,  as  they  look  upwards,  know  and 
feel  themselves  to  be  endowed  and  to  be  distinguished 
by  faculties,  which  worms  and  fishes,  and  birds  and 
14 


314  MIRACLES  AND   PNEUMATOLOGY. 

beasts  have  not.  Men  live  inside  of  nature,  as  it  is 
called,  as  moles  and  butterflies,  and  eagles  and  lions  do. 
But  there  is  not  a  very  fool  of  civilization,  nor  an  ab 
original  savage  anywhere,  but  by  the  ongoings  of  his 
thought  is  evidence  as  to  a  Providence  higher  in  order, 
and  farther  reaching  as  to  its  purposes,  than  what  even 
the  elephant  can  be  subject  to. 

And  yet  as  to  what  God  may  be  meaning  with  the 
soul  of  man,  the  soul  itself  is  often  almost  the  last 
witness  to  be  examined.  From  science,  as  it  anato 
mizes  the  human  body,  theology  learns  that  God  is 
wonderful  at  the  adaptation  of  means  to  ends  :  but  the 
ology  just  at  present  very  seldom  asks  of  pneumatol- 
ogy  what  the  human  soul  may  have  been  disclosing 
of  its  nature,  adaptation  or  correspondences.  The  the 
ology  of  the  day  knows  disproportionately  much  about 
the  Dead  Sea,  and  ancient  sites,  and  as  to  mint,  anise, 
and  cummin,  and  tithes  in  the  Holy  Land  ;  but  it  is  at 
fault  as  to  "  the  first  principles  of  the  oracles  of  God." 

A  man  may  be  of  a  name,  illustrated  in  many  ways, 
and  through  many  generations,  and  at  the  battles  of 
Bannockburn,  and  Evesham,  and  on  the  field  near 
Hastings.  But  even  though  also  the  man  could  derive 
his  descent  from  an  age  anterior  to  the  Tower  of  Babel, 
and  even  directly  from  Tubal-cain,  what  would  it  all  be 
for  glory,  in  comparison  with  what  probably  he  would 
be  disabled  from  feeling  by  ancestral  pride,  and  that  is, 
the  actual  height  of  his  descent !  For  fleshly  parentage 
is  but  the  channel,  through  which  the  universe  itself 
gives  birth  to  human  beings  endowed  with  feelings,  by 
which  every  man  is  akin  to  every  spirit,  in  the  image 
of  God,  everywhere,  irrespectively  of  time  and  solar 


MIRACLES   AND   PNEUMATOLOGY.  315 

systems ;  and  by  which  also  he  is  blest  with  faculties, 
which  will  manifest  themselves  afresh  to  all  eternity, 
as  he  passes  from  world  to  world,  or  ascends  the 
heavens,  one  above  another. 

The  preceding  sentiment  is  worth  more  than  a  duke 
dom  to  the  man  who  can  make  it  his  own.  But  nearly 
everybody  fails  of  it  more  or  less,  and  just  as  the  Gos 
pel  is  failed  of,  and  merely  because  of  "  the  lust  of  the 
eye  and  the  pride  of  life." 

And  the  theology  of  the  present  day  is  characterized 
by  a  similar  externality  of  view.  And  thus  it  is  that 
pneumatology  or  the  experience  of  men,  as  to  the  soul, 
through  thousands  of  years,  is  what  is  utterly  unknown 
in  many  schools  of  divinity,  though  actually  it  may  be 
called  the  grammar  of  revelation.  Also,  commonly 
persons  read  the  Bible,  being  ignorant  as  to  the  differ 
ence  between  soul  and  body,  and  as  to  what  anciently 
was  understood  and  believed,  as  to  spirit.  And  even 
persons  o'f  mental  training  will  talk  about  the  spirit  as 
though  it  were  a  religious  word  for  the  body,  and  some 
thing  very  simple  and  familiar.  And  yet  some  of  these 
same  persons  would  be  very  careful  as  to  thinking 
about  an  oyster,  or  how  they  gave  an  opinion  about  the 
habits  and  connections  of  a  beetle. 

The  degradation  of  sentiment  alluded  to  above  is  a  , 
thing  of  the  last  hundred  years,  and  mainly  of  even  the 
last  fifty.  For,  before  that  time,  the  word  spirit  meant 
more,  religiously,  than  it  now  does ;  and  it  was  more 
nea.rly  akin  to  revelation  and  miracles  than  it  is  now 
thought  to  be. 

It  has  already  been  remarked  that  the  best  thinkers 
of  the  Christian  Church  have  recognized  persons  of 


316  MIRACLES  AND  PNEUMATOLOGY. 

different  ages  and  places  as  being  prophets  who  were 
neither  of  the  seed  of  Abraham  nor  of  the  Christian 
name.  Capacity  for  prophecy  is  of  human  nature ; 
while  the  inspiration  itself  may  be  of  extra-natural 
origin. 

Christianity  and  heathenism  were  in  direct,  daily 
controversy,  when  it  was  held  in  the  Church,  that  the 
philosophy  of  Plato  was  the  long  dawn  that  preceded 
the  rise  of  the  sun  of  righteousness.  But  how  different 
is  this  opinion  from  the  jealousy  of  everything  spirit 
ual,  outside  of  the  Bible,  which  is  so  common  with 
Christians  to-day ! 

It  has  often  been  a  great  shock  to  people,  when  they 
have  heard,  for  the  first  time,  that  one  or  two  of  the 
moral  precepts  of  Christ  had  been  anticipated  by  clas 
sical  writers.  As  though  eighteen  hundred  years  ago  it 
had  been  possible  for  Jesus  Christ  or  for  an  angel  from 
heaven,  to  have  said  anything  absolutely  new  as  to 
mere  morality.  And  so  there  have  been  persons  who 
have  felt  as  though  Christianity  were  scandalized  be 
cause  Matthew  the  publican  is  found  not  to  have 
written  as  good  Greek  as  Thucydides,  the  historian  of 
the  Peloponnesian  war,  and  because  the  style  of  St. 
Paul  in  his  epistles  is  not  faultlessly  classical.  But 
what  says  Paul  himself  as  to  his  language  ?  "  Now  we 
have  received  not  the  spirit  of  the  world,  but  the  Spirit 
which  is  of  God  ;  that  we  might  know  the  things  that 
are  freely  given  to  us  of  God.  Which  things  also  we 
speak,  not  in  the  words  which  man's  wisdom  teacheth, 
but  which  the  Holy  Ghost  teacheth  ;  comparing  spirit 
ual  things  with  spiritual."  Why  did  not  Paul  pick 
and  choose  his  words  for  himself  ?  Because  he  was  not 


MIRACLES  AND  PNEUMATOLOGY.  317 

always  merely  himself,  when  he  wrote,  and  did  not 
wish  to  be ;  and  because  to  an  argument,  of  his  own 
apparently,  or  possibly,  he  could  add,  "  And  I  think 
that  I  have  the  Spirit  of  God." 

Some  persons  suppose  that  the  preceding  words  are 
merely  Paul's  Jewish  way  of  hoping  that  he  was  a 
good  man,  and  therefore  entitled  to  give  advice.  Than 
which  a  more  violent  misunderstanding  of  words  could 
not  well  be,  if  Paul  may  be  interpreted  by  himself,  and 
by  the  tone  and  purpose  of  his  epistles,  or  even  by  his 
words  to  Timothy  about  the  world's  "  sinners,  of  whom  I 
am  chief."  For  these  words  of  Paul,  as  to  his  having  the 
Spirit,  are  expressive  of  a  pneumatology,  presupposed 
by  the  Gospel,  and  in  ignorance  of  which  the  best  lines 
of  Paul's  writing  fail  and  fade  before  the  eye  of  the 
reader.  For  it  is  as  being  from  over  and  above  him 
that  the  Spirit  is  authority  for  the  promises,  which  are 
made  through  him,  and  as  to  the  communion  of  saints, 
to  the  sense  of  which  Paul  would  quicken  us,  and  as  to 
the  liberty  which  may  be  claimed  and  trusted  "  where 
the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  is." 

•  That  the  Spirit  of  God,  for  inspiration,  may  operate 
through  human  receptiveness,  irrespectively  of  nation 
ality,  was  an  opinion  which  might  well  have  been  held 
by  the  readers  of  Paul's  epistles,  and  even  by  the 
ancient  Jews  generally.  In  the  book  of  Joshua,  Ba 
laam  is  described  as  having  been  a  soothsayer.  And 
yet  through  him  was  given  the  grandest  prophecy  in 
the  Old  Testament.  And  the  circumstantial  detail 
connected  with  that  prophecy  is  what  makes  it  to  be 
its  own  all-sufficient  evidence,  for  reality,  as  an  histori 
cal  occurrence,  with  all  such  persons  as  have  any  right 


318  MIRACLES  AND  PNEUMATOLOGY. 

to  judge  about  it.  Balaam  was  famous  as  a  soothsayer, 
before  the  Israelites  on  their  journeying  came  within 
his  sight.  Probably  he  was  inspired  by  the  Lord  only 
on  that  one  occasion,  when  he  was  confronted  with  the 
Lord's  people,  with  a  hostile  view.  Balak,  the  king 
of  the  Moabites,  summoned  Balaam  and  said  to  him, 
"  Behold  there  is  a  people  come  out  from  Egypt :  be 
hold  they  cover  the  face  of  the  earth,  and  they  abide 
over  against  me.  Come  now,  therefore,  I  pray  thee, 
curse  me  this  people,  for  they  are  too  mighty  for  me." 
It  was  Baal  against  Jehovah.  u  And  it  came  to  pass 
on  the  morrow,  that  Balak  took  Balaam,  and  brought 
him  up  into  the  high  places  of  Baal,  that  thence  he 
might  see  the  utmost  part  •of  the  people."  And  prob 
ably  it  was  because  he  was  conscious  of  another  kind 
of  inspiration  than  what  had  ever  come  upon  him  from 
Baal,  that  "  he  went  not  as  at  other  times  to  seek  for 
enchantments,"  or  artificial  means,  by  which  to  fit  him 
self  for  being  spiritually  possessed.  Balaam  was  an 
Ammonite  perhaps,  or  an  Edomite,  and  he  was  even  on 
one  of  the  high  places  of  Baal,  when  his  spiritual  sus 
ceptibility  was  used  by  the  Lord  for  prophecy. 

And  if,  "when  Jesus  was  born  in  Bethlehem  of 
Judea,  in  the  days  of  Herod  the  king,  behold  there 
came  wise  men  from  the  east  to  Jerusalem,  saying, 
Where  is  he  that  is  born  King  of  the  Jews  ?  for  we 
have  seen  his  star  in  the  east,  and  have  come  to  wor 
ship  him,"  it  could  only  have  been  because  of  their 
nature  as  Magi,  having  been  wrought  upon  spiritually 
by  the  God  of  Abraham,  and  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  and 
Moses,  David,  Isaiah,  and  Daniel.  The  star  by  which 
they  were  guided  would  seem  to  have  been  visible  only 


MIRACLES   AND  PNEUMATOLOGY.  319 

to  them,  and  therefore  to  them  only  "  in  the  spirit." 
On  rinding  "  the  young  child  with  Mary  his  mother," 
at  the  end  of  their  long  journey,  "they  presented  unto 
him  gifts,  gold  and  frankincense  and  myrrh."  And  so 
through  that  act  of  theirs  was  manifested  that  from 
the  best  of  the  Gentiles,  as  well  as  with  the  Jews,  "  the 
testimony  of  Jesus  is  the  spirit  of  prophecy." 

Plato  was  for  the  Greeks  what  Moses  was  for  the 
Jews,  and  was  a  schoolmaster  to  prepare  men  for 
Christ.  This  was  a  Christian  opinion  in  the  early  days 
of  the  Church,  and  while  still  Greek  meant  Gentile. 
In  this  sentiment,  a  belief  is  implied  in  spiritual  sus 
ceptibility,  as  being  an  endowment  of  the  soul.  And 
the  name  of  Plato  is  but  the  greatest,  on  a  long  shining 
list  of  natural  saints.  For,  always  and  everywhere, 
whether  in  vile  neighborhoods  or  amidst  the  splendid 
temples  and  monuments  of  paganism,  the  simple,  long 
ing,  unperverted  soul  does,  by  its  spiritual  susceptibil 
ity,  become  of  itself  a  temple  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and 
an  oracle  for  consultation ;  and  has  in  it  an  odor  of 
sweet  thoughts  like  grateful  frankincense,  and  strains 
of  sweet  music,  as  though  from  angelic  choirs,  high  up 
in  heaven. 

That  the  Holy  Spirit  does  not  inform  men  as  to 
natural  history,  nor  correct  them  as  to  bad  logic,  is  not 
inconsistent  with  the  certainty  of  its  effects  as  to  en 
lightenment  and  faith.  Gregory  Thaumaturgus  said 
as  to  Origen,  his  master,  that  he  had  received  from  God 
a  large  share  of  the  greatest  of  all  gifts,  that  of  inter 
preting  the  words  of  God  to  men,  and  of  understanding 
the  things  of  God,  as  if  God  himself  were  speaking. 
Whatever  the  special  application  to  Origen  may  be  of 


320  MIRACLES  AND  PNEUMATOLOGY. 

these  words,  they  yet  illustrate  the  philosophy  of  early 
Christian  belief. 

Before  a  man  can  take,  he  must  have  a  hand  to  open 
and  to  stretch  forth.  And  for  being  quickened  by  the 
Spirit,  a  man  must  be,  not  a  statue  in  marble,  but  a 
living,  suffering,  craving  soul.  And  it  is  only  as  he 
craves  and  covets  earnestly,  that  the  best  gifts  can 
either  be  attracted  to  him  or  be  received.  The  gifts  of 
the  Spirit  presuppose  spiritual  receptiveness. 

And  the  variety  of  the  gifts  of  the  Spirit,  as  they 
are  enumerated  by  St.  Paul,  is  presupposed  the  variety 
of  the  ways,  in  which  men  may  be  quickened,  taught, 
and  endowed  from  above.  It  is  probable  that  of  all  the 
myriads  of  millions  of  human  beings,  that  there  are  no 
two  souls  alike,  any  more  than  two  faces  are.  And 
therefore  probably  with  the  Spirit,  no  two  souls 
quicken  in  exactly  the  same  manner,  or  are  endowed 
to  precisely  the  same  purpose.  The  young  man  through 
it  may  see  visions,  and  the  old  man  by  it  may  dream 
dreams.  One  man  is  helped  by  it,  as  to  infirmities, 
and  another  as  to  prayer.  One  man  abounds  in  hope 
through  the  Holy  Ghost ;  and  another  man,  through  the 
Spirit,  is  encouraged  to  wait  for  the  hope  of  righteous 
ness  by  faith.  By  the  Spirit  of  God  in  his  words,  one 
man  may  cast  out  devils,  without  knowing  of  it,  while 
another  man  sheds  abroad  the  love  of  God.  "  To  one  is 
given,  by  the  Spirit,  the  word  of  wisdom ;  to  another 
the  word  of  knowledge,  by  the  same  Spirit ;  to  another 
faith,  by  the  same  Spirit ;  to  another  the  gift  of  healing, 
by  the  same  Spirit ;  to  another  the  working  of  miracles  ; 
to  another  prophecy  ;  to  another  discerning  of  spirits ; 
to  another  divers  kinds  of  tongues  ;  to  another  the  in- 


MIRACLES   AND   PNEUMATOLOGY.  321 

terpretation  of  tongues ;  but  all  these  worketh  that  one 
and  the  selfsame  Spirit,  dividing  to  every  man  several 
ly  as  he  will."  And  not  only  as  to  manifestation  may 
the  Spirit  differ  in  different  men  ;  but  more  broadly 
and  more  distinctly  still,  must  it  differ  from  one 
age  to  another,  in  the  Church.  And  even  it  may  hap 
pen,  that  a  man  may  have  been  so  instructed  about  the 
Spirit,  as  to  think  of  it  mainly  for  some  of  its  more 
noticeable  manifestations,  and  as  being  sharpness  in  the 
sword  of  the  Lord,  or  inspiration  in  psalms  and  high 
thought,  or  as  being  a  baptism  of  fire ;  and  so  may  fear 
that  he  may  be  a  stranger  to  it,  while  yet  himself  he  is 
actually  walking  in  it. 

And  indeed  it  is  as  men  "  walk  in  the  Spirit "  that 
chiefly  it  is  blessedness.  For  the  more  marvellous 
manifestations  of  the  Spirit,  which  are  the  exceptional 
experiences  of  individuals,  are  really  for  the  good  of 
all;  just  as  Peter  argues  that  "  no  prophecy  of  the  Scrip 
ture  is  of  any  private  interpretation." 

One  man  in  a  generation  may  be  so  rapt  in  spirit, 
as  almost  to  have  his  soul  thrill  to  the  joy,  which  there 
is  in  heaven,  when  some  fresh  word  of  the  Lord  is 
evolved;  or  he  may  be  so  sensitive  through  the  Spirit, 
as  to  have  some  dim  sense  of  angels  on  the  wing,  and 
so  appear  to  have  a  prophetic  instinct  as  to  critical 
events  foreordained  of  God.  Or  with  being  lifted  up, 
in  spirit,  and  breathing,  for  an  instant,  what  is  more 
than  mortal  air,  a  man  may  have  a  thought  grander 
than  the  tone  of  ordinary  thinking,  and  what  may 
make  him  famous  among  his  fellow-mortals.  But  it  is 
scarcely  possible  for  a  person  to  have  transcendent 
experiences,  without  incurring  some  earthly  disruption. 
14*  u 


322  MIRACLES  AND   PNEUMATOLOGY. 

Just  as  Paul  found,  after  the  visions,  in  which  he  was 
called  and  qualified  to  be  an  apostle,  that  there  was 
lodged  with  him  a  life-long  trouble,  lest  he  "  should  be 
exalted  above  measure  through  the  abundance  of  the 
revelations."  And  a  man  has  found  himself  become 
like  a  stranger  among  his  kindred  and  his  acquaint 
ance  simply  from  having  been  sublimed  by  a  prayer, 
of  agony  and  faith  combined. 

The  soul  of  man  is  susceptible  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 
It  is  not  born  with  the  Spirit,  but  only  with  a  nature 
fitted  for  its  coming.  The  apostle  Paul  asks,  "  Know 
ye  not  that  ye  are  the  temple  of  God,  and  that  the 
Spirit  of  God  dwelleth  in  you  ? "  And  it  may  be,  that 
it  is  through  the  same  susceptibility  of  spirit,  that 
one  man  receives  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  another  man 
"  drinketh  iniquity  like  water."  As  a  young  man  with 
his  face  in  the  right  direction,  Saul  had  the  Spirit  of 
God  come  upon  him.  Thirty  years  afterwards,  with 
his  face  set  wilfully  wrong,  "the  Spirit  of  the  Lord 
departed  from  Saul,  and  an  evil  spirit  from  the  Lord 
troubled  him."  And  probably  the  same  spiritual  sus 
ceptibility,  by  which  he  had  been  receptive  of  the 
Spirit  of  the  Lord  was  the  channel  by  which  "the 
evil  spirit,"  sent  on  its  errand,  got  at  him.  That  spirit 
ual  susceptibility,  for  which  perhaps  Judas  was  chosen 
as  one  of  the  twelve,  and  through  which  perhaps  he 
received  "  power  and  authority  over  all  devils  and  to 
cure  diseases,"  was,  in  all  probability,  the  same  sus- 
ceptivity,  through  which  diabolically  it  was  "  put  into 
the  heart  of  Judas  Iscariot,  Simon's  son,  to  betray  him." 
Demoniacal  possession  as  the  Jews  knew  of  it,  and  as 
it  is  known  of  to-day,  in  many  parts  of  the  world, 


MIRACLES   AND   PNEUMATOLOGY.  323 

illustrates  human  nature,  as  to  its  susceptibilities  spir 
itually,  and  as  to  its  exposure  to  dangerous,  disembodied 
agencies,  and  invisible  forces.  But  from  the  Scriptures, 
it  might  seem,  as  though  in  the  age  of  Jesus  Christ 
that  that  spiritual  susceptivity,  by  which  the  "  spirit 
of  an  unclean  devil "  could  get  entrance  into  the  temple 
of  a  human  soul,  was  actually  what,  with  a  better  man, 
would  have  been  receptiveness  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 
This  spiritual  susceptibility  is  by  nature ;  though  one- 
man  may  perhaps  have  more  of  it,  than  another ;  just 
as  one  man  is  more  tender  in  heart,  or  poetic  in 
thought,  than  another.  But  perhaps  by  prayer  and 
other  means,  it  is  what  a  man  can  get  quickened  and 
purified  for  himself,  more  surely  than  he  can  hope 
as  to  the  enlargement  of  any  other  faculty  of  his 
nature. 

Let  this  susceptibility  of  spiritual  influence  be  called 
magnetic,  if  it  may  thereby  seem  to  be  more  credible. 
For  man  is  organized  magnetism,  as  certainly  as  also  or 
ganically,  he  is  flesh  and  blood.  A  skeleton  is  human, 
but  senseless.  A  skeleton  properly  clothed  with  flesh 
and  blood  is  a  living  creature,  with  adaptations,  by  which 
it  is  fitted  to  a  world  of  earth,  air,  and  water,  light,  heat, 
and  fruits.  But  as  a  magnetic  man  in  a  magnetic 
world,  I  am  a  creature  of  affinities  and  possibilities  in 
numerable.  Of  many  and  of  most  of  them,  I  may  have 
only  a  faint  and  scarcely  noticeable  experience.  But 
whatever  anybody  has  ever  felt  or  seen  or  known,  is 
testimony  as  to  my  nature.  Also  I  am  alive  with 
odyle,  and  by  the  odic  force  I  am  connected  with 
things  unknown  on  the  earth  and  under  it. 

For  indeed   man  is  not  born   of   flesh  and  blood 


324  MIRACLES   AND   PNEUMATOLOGY. 

merely,  nor  of  two  parents  simply,  but  of  the  universe, 
both  material  and  immaterial,  and  with  an  aptitude, 
which  high  angels  will  respond  to  hereafter,  and  with 
a  susceptibility  as  to  spiritual  influences  of  various 
kinds,  which  is  none  the  less  real  because  often  it  is 
very  weak,  and  because,  whether  it  is  seated  "  in  the 
body  or  out  of  the  body,"  not  every  one  can  tell. 

By  means  of  electricity,  it  is  possible  for  a  person  in 
Boston,  simultaneously  almost,  to  be  connected,  as  to 
intelligence,  with  persons,  in  every  city  in  North 
America,  and  perhaps  in  Europe.  And  that  it  is  pos 
sible  for  one  mind  to  act  upon  another,  without  any 
intervening  agency,  and  from  a  long  distance,  is  an 
established  fact  of  pneumatology ;  and  it  has  been 
demonstrated  artificially,  by  mesmerism,  many  hun 
dreds  of  times.  How  often  and  continually  mothers 
are  impressed  as  to  critical  events  concerning  their  ab 
sent  children !  And  how  frequently  instances  occur, 
in  which  the  dying  believe  that  they  see  spirits,  and 
hear  unearthly  music !  Also  how  numerous,  even 
within  the  last  few  years,  have  been  the  cases,  whicli 
have  been  published  of  strange  and  irresistible  im 
pulses,  which  proved  afterwards  to  have  been  prophetic 
and  guardian ! 

When  all  the  varieties  of  information  which  exist  as 
to  the  human  body  are  collected,  science  would  seem 
to  hint,  that  possibly  in  the  eyes  of  an  angel,  man  as  a 
mortal  may  seem  like  a  spirit  aglow  with  all  the  colors 
of  the  rainbow,  though  with  just  enough  materiality 
about  him,  to  keep  him  at  school  inside  of  the  walls  of 
nature. 

Doubt  about  miracles  as  not  perhaps  being  natural 


MIRACLES   AND   PNEUMATOLOGY.  325 

to  man !  But  really  even  bread  is  not  more  so !  Mira 
cles —  those  of  the  Scriptures,  and,  as  being  nearer  to 
our  own  times,  those  of  the  New  Testament  especially 
—  miracles  are  true  to  human  nature.  But  human 
nature  is  not  like  the  make  of  a  cast-iron  machine 
working  by  rule. 

And  indeed  we  human  beings  as  children  of  the  uni 
verse,  and  heirs  of  God,  have  in  us,  by  birth,  a  capacity 
for  being  born  again,  and  germs  also  of  marvels,  which 
will  be  opening  to  all  eternity.  And  thus,  too,  we  find 
ourselves  endowed  with  some  powers  and  affinities, 
which  appertain  especially  to  a  world  which  is  to  come ; 
but  which  yet  may  manifest  themselves  faintly  and 
fitfully  through  individuals,  in  this  present  world,  and 
so  hint  for  us  all,  as  by  flashes  of  lightning,  that,  be 
cause  of  the  flesh,  life  at  its  brightest,  is  what  "  now, 
we  see  as  through  a  glass  darkly." 

Such  facts  as  have  been  supposed  to  be  supernatural, 
of  the  nature  of  dreams,  apparitions,  and  strange  im 
pressions  and  impulses,  and  which  have  happened  and 
been  published,  within  the  last  twenty  years  ;  and  such 
narratives  of  a  mesmeric  character  as  are  to  be  found 
in  the  Zoist,  —  were  these  things  to  be  gathered,  ex 
amined,  and  collated,  with  as  much  care  as  has  been 
given  to  the  lives  and  classification  of  butterflies,  and 
with  as  much  acuteness  as  what  caught  the  lightning 
in  its  ways,  there  would  result  a  pneumatology,  by 
which  the  Scriptures  would  be  illuminated  for  -dark 
ling  readers ;  and  by  which  men  would  believe  in  the 
immortality  of  the  soul,  as  they  never  can,  until  they 
have  some  understanding  about  the  soul  itself,  and  dis 
cerningly  "  have  tasted  the  good  word  of  God,  and  the 
powers  of  the  world  to  come." 


326  MIRACLES   AND   PNEUMATOLOGY. 

But  some  persons  perhaps  will  exclaim,  "  Mesmer 
ism  !  What  has  that  to  do  with  the  Scriptures  ?  A 
thing  of  the  last  century ! "  It  is,  however,  an  old  thing. 
And  of  its  connection  with  the  Old  Testament,  there 
is  this  to  be  read.  Naaman  from  Syria  had  been 
directed,  for  a  cure,  as  to  leprosy,  by  Elisha  the 
prophet,  to  wash  himself  in  the  Jordan,  seven  times. 
But  he  would  seem  to  have  felt  himself  aggrieved  by 
the  simplicity  of  the  remedy.  "  ISTaaman  was  wroth, 
and  went  away,  and  said,  Behold,  I  thought  he  would 
surely  come  out  to  me,  and  stand  and  call  on  the  name 
of  the  Lord  his  God,  and  strike  his  hand  over  the  place, 
and  recover  the  leper."  That  the  prophet  would  move 
his  hand  up  and  down,  over  the  diseased  part  of  his 
body,  was  what  was  expected  by  Naaman  accord 
ing  to  a  correct  translation  of  his  words.  And  appar 
ently  it  was  a  mode  of  healing,  which  the  Syrian  knew 
of,  before  his  resort  to  Elisha.  And  it  is  certain,  that 
mesmeric  practice  is  to  be  seen  sculptured  on  ancient 
monuments  in  Egypt. 

Mesmerism  is  not  the  Gospel,  and  God  be  thanked 
that  it  is  not,  and  that  there  is  come  to  us  "  the  glori 
ous  gospel  of  the  blessed  God."  But  mesmerism  is 
more  of  a  gospel  than  the  doctrine  of  those  who  believe 
in  spirits  and  angels,  only  as  pious  words  in  the  Bible, 
and  who  know  of  Christianity,  in  the  letter  merely,  and 
as  though  apart  from  "  the  everlasting  spirit,"  and  who 
fancy  that  there  can  be  faith  in  Jesus  as  the  Christ, 
with  those  who  cannot  conceive  of  the  possibility  of  a 
prophet,  in  the  way  in  which  he  was  thought  of,  by  the 
Jews  of  the  Old  Testament. 

It  was  one  of  the  parables  of  Jesus,  that  "  The  king- 


MIRACLES  AND   PNEUMATOLOGY.  327 

dom  of  heaven  is  like  unto  leaven,  which  a  woman 
took  and  hid  in  three  measures  of  meal,  till  the  whole 
was  leavened."  But  very  unlike  the  spirit  of  this  para 
ble,  is  the  mental  state  of  some  believers  to-day,  who 
confess  their  jealousy  of  studies,  through  which  any  word 
or  incident  of  the  Scriptures,  might  have  its  apparent 
peculiarity  diminished.  0  they  of  little  faith !  Would 
Jesus  Christ  himself  be  less  important,  by  having  his 
words  fulfilled,  "  Verily,  verily,  I  say  unto  you,  he  that 
belie veth  on  me,  the  works  that  I  do,  shall  he  do  also ; 
and  greater  works  than  these  shall  he  do,  because  I  go 
unto  the  Father  "  ?  Do  the  heavens  declare  the  glory 
of  God  the  less,  because  now  more  is  known  of  them, 
than  what  David  sung  of  by  inspiration  ?  Is  man's 
make  any  the  less  fearfully  and  wonderfully  felt,  be 
cause  of  the  discovery  of  the  circulation  of  the  blood  ? 

That  some  sentences  in  the  Lord's  prayer  are  older 
than  Jesus  himself  has  been  urged  as  a  fact  derogatory 
to  Christianity.  But  it  might  as  well  be  said  in  dero 
gation  of  Jesus,  that  he  made  use  of  common  words  as 
well  as  the  common  sentiments  of  his  day;  and  that 
he  was  furnished  with  parables  by  such  common  ob 
jects  as  a  mustard-plant,  a  sower  going  forth  to  sow, 
a  net  that  was  cast  into  the  sea,  and  a  woman  with  ten 
pieces  of  silver. 

There  are  persons  who  feel  as  though  ghost-stories 
infringed  on  the  Scriptures,  as  to  the  revelation  of  an 
other  world.  And  there  have  been  persons  who  have 
held  that  there  never  was  any  knowledge  of  a  future 
life,  till  the  preaching  and  the  resurrection  of  Jesus 
Christ.  Yet  it  is  plain,  from  the  four  Gospels,  that 
Jesus  did  not  address  men  as  apes  and  gorillas,  but  as 


328  MIRACLES  AND  PNEUMATOLOGY. 

believers  in  a  world  to  come.  Jesus  did  not  invent  the 
words  "  spirit "  and  "  soul/'  "  heaven  "  and  "  hell." 
And  when  he  first  used  them,  they  were  very  old 
words,  and  meant  conceptions  that  were  ancient.  Ac 
tually  there  are  theological  writers  at  this  present  time 
who  have  less  knowledge  as  to  the  soul  than  what  was 
taken  for  granted  by  Paul  with  the  heathen,  and  by 
Jesus  with  the  Jews.  In  the  Middle  Ages,  and  in  the 
sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  theology  vindi 
cated  for  the  service  of  the  Church,  facts  such  as  are 
common  in  the  records  of  animal  magnetism.  But  to 
day,  animal  magnetism  is  commonly  the  terror  of  theo 
logians.  Yet  men  will  never  be  religiously  what  they 
ought  to  be,  in  the  light  of  these  latter  days,  nor  be 
Christians  with  Paul's  courage,  till  it  shall  be  under 
stood  that  pneumatology  is  a  handmaid  in  the  house 
hold  of  faith,  and  not  a  suspicious  vagabond  about  the 
temple,  who  will  not  be  driven  away. 

"  The  word  which  God  sent  unto  the  children  of 
Israel,  preaching  peace  by  Jesus  Christ,"  is  anything 
but  what  ought  to  be  isolated  from  science,  and  from 
the  facts  of  human  experience,  as  they  accrue.  For,  as 
to  the  earth,  it  is  as  true  to-day,  for  eyes  that  can  see, 
as  it  was  in  the  year  when  King  Uzziah  died,  and 
when  Isaiah  saw  the  seraphiins  ;  and  when  "  one  cried 
unto  another,  and  said,  Holy,  holy,  holy  is  the  Lord  of 
hosts ;  the  whole  earth  is  full  of  his  glory  ! " 

Tearfulness  for  the  Gospel,  as  to  geology,  or  animal 
magnetism,  or  the  publication  of  the  Talmud,  or  as  to 
the  gates  of  hell,  is  utterly  uncongenial  with  "  the  eter 
nal  Spirit,"  and  inconsistent  with  any  experience  of  it. 

Who  and  what,  then,  is  Jesus  Christ  ?   He  is  "  Jesus 


MIRACLES   AND   PNEUMATOLOGY.  329 

Christ  our  Lord,  which  was  made  of  the  seed  of  David 
according  to  the  flesh ;  and  declared  to  be  the  Son  of 
God  with  power,  according,  to  the  spirit  of  holiness,  by 
the  resurrection  from  the  dead."  But  for  us  in  this 
age,  individually,  what  is  he  ?  He  "  is  the  Lord  from 
heaven  "  ;  he  is  "  a  quickening  spirit."  And  the  Holy 
Spirit,  the  Comforter,  which  comes  of  him,  is  what  my 
nature  has  a  sense  for ;  and  it  is  also  what  my  nature 
has  groaned  for,  and  travailed  in  pain,  to  have  come. 
And  this  spiritual  susceptibility  which  I  have,  by  crea 
tion,  not  only  argues  my  want,  but  as  under  God,  fore 
tells  also,  as  to  itself,  that  it  will  certainly  be  met  from 
above.  "  Blessed  are  they  which  do  hunger  and  thirst 
after  righteousness  :  for  they  shall  be  filled."  And  to 
day,  as  in  the  first  days  of  the  gospel,  by  God  cer 
tainly  "  the  Holy  Ghost  is  given  to  them  that  obey " 
Christ.  And  therefore  through  that  susceptibility  to 
spiritual  influence,  which  is  natural  to  me,  by  sympa- 
thi^ing  with  Christ  Jesus  as  a  man,  in  his  heavenward 
aspirations,  I  may  trustfully  expect  the  Holy  Ghost, 
and  be  certain  of  it,  even  though  through  me,  it  may 
make  no  "  manifestation  "  of  those  special  "  gifts,"  which 
though  vouchsafed  to  individuals,  yet  are  for  "every 
man  to  profit  withal." 

The  Spirit  of  God  may  be  intimately  mine,  and  so 
as  even  possibly  to  be  cunning  in  the  hand  for  work 
manship,  as  it  was  with  Bezaleel.  It  may  be  like  a 
part  of  myself,  and  as  intimately  so,  at  least,  as  the 
strength  which  results  from  food.  But  yet  it  is  what 
is  separate  from  me  ;  and  it  is  what  may  be  quenched 
in  me.  David  prays  to  God,  "  Cast  me  not  away  from 
thy  presence ;  and  take  not  thy  Holy  Spirit  from  me." 


330  MIRACLES   AND   PNEUMATOLOGY. 

And  Paul  writes  to  the  Ephesians,  "  Grieve  not  the 
Holy  Spirit  of  God,  whereby  ye  are  sealed  unto  the 
day  of  redemption."  And  to  the  Thessalonians  he 
writes,  "  Quench  not  the  Spirit."  The  Holy  Spirit  is 
part  of  me ;  it  is  what  I  can  think  by :  it  is  what  will 
inform  my  prayers  for  me ;  it  is  joy  in  me,  and  it  is  as 
though  I  myself  were  it,  as  long  as  I  myself  am  right. 
But  with  vanity  or  wrong-doing,  it  fails  me,  just  as  his 
strength  fails  a  fainting  man.  The  Holy  Spirit  was  in 
me,  like  the  inspiration  of  my  understanding ;  it  was 
the  life  of  my  higher  life  ;  it  was  the  soul  of  my  better 
soul ;  and  it  was  the  holiness  of  my  spirit.  And  sud 
denly  with  sin,  it  is  gone ;  and  my  most  familiar  con 
nection  with  heaven  is  stopped,  And  though  I  may 
not  have  been  certain,  as  to  whether  I  ever  did  have 
the  Spirit,  yet  with  the  loss  of  it  by  sin,  I  know  well 
what  I  have  been  parted  from. 

A  man  may  never  have  it  but  once ;  and  indeed  he 
cannot  have  it  more  than  once,  with  the  same  effect; — 
that  strange  experience  of  grieving  the  Holy  Spirit, 
with  a  sense  of  revelation  afterwards.  For  when  the 
Spirit  is  withdrawn,  or  fails  from  a  person  who  has 
been  walking  in  it,  his  joy  stops,  and  his  prayers  grow 
dry  and  unbelieving.  And  it  is  like  a  revelation  by 
darkness,  what  he  feels,  at  finding  himself  to  be  left 
to  himself,  and  cut  off  from  heaven,  and  from  that  Holy 
Spirit,  which,  among  mortals,  is  like  its  outer  sphere. 

In  all  this  experience  as  to  the  Holy  Spirit  there  is, 
what  essentially  is  meant  by  the  word,  miracle,  for  there 
is  the  experience  of  extraordinary,  extra-natural,  and 
and  therefore  occasional  forces.  "  Speak,  Lord,  for  thy 
servant  heareth,"  said  the  child  Samuel  by  the  advice 


MIRACLES   AND   PNEUMATOLOGY.  331 

of  Eli,  the  prophet,  in  the  dark,  in  the  temple,  and  be 
fore  he  yet  knew  the  word  of  the  Lord.  And  whatever 
it  may  be  in  high  heaven,  still  among  us  mortals,  every 
word  and  influence  not  from  the  Lord  only,  but  from 
withinside  of  the  spiritual  world,  from  any  one,  is  of 
the  nature  of  a  miracle. 

Every  man  is  a  creature  of  miraculous  possibilities. 
And  by  comparison  with  the  uniformity  of  nature, 
there  are  thousands  of  human  beings,  at  this  day,  whose 
lives  are  of  a  miraculous  character,  because  of  preter 
natural  influences.  Miracle !  All  human  intercourse 
with  the  world  invisible,  whether  with. spirit,  or  angels, 
or  with  God  Most  High,  must  necessarily  flash  with 
"  signs  and  wonders,"  as  being  itself  miraculous. 

In  the  Iliad  of  Homer  there  is  the  saying,  "The 
dream  is  from  Jove."  And  Cicero  has  the  sentiment 
that  "  Dreams  are  the  natural  oracle."  Let  these  two 
quotations  represent  almost  two  thousand  passages, 
which  might  easily  be  cited  from  ancient  authors,  as  to 
the  philosophy  and  authority  of  dreams,  and  as  to  the 
supernatural  communications,  of  which  they  have  been 
believed  to  be  the  channel.  But  by  dreams,  of  course, 
are  not  meant  mental  movements  started  by  an  uneasy 
stomach  or  any  other  accidental  cause,  nor  even  such 
wanderings  of  the  mind  in  sleep,  as  idleness  can  have, 
when  much  at  its  ease,  and  wide  awake.  The  Greeks 
and  Eomans  knew  very  well,  that  dreams  have  not  all 
the  same  origin.  And  men  like  Pausanias,  and  the 
students  of  Plato,  were  little  likely  to  attribute  the  ab 
surdities  of  a  crude  stomach  to  a  heavenly  origin. 

That  "dreams  are  the  natural  oracle"  is  a  sentiment 
which  involves  the  philosophy  of  revelation.  For,  it 


332  MIRACLES   AND  PNEUMATOLOGY. 

asserts  tlie  existence  in  f man,  of  a  susceptibility  to  the 
influences  of  the  spiritual  world.  And  that  sentiment 
did  not  originate  in  any  such  nonsense  about  dreams, 
as  a  modern  materialist  would  suppose,  but  in  experi 
ences  and  traditions,  as  respectable  as  the  names  of 
Socrates  and  Plato,  as  wise  as  ancient  Greece,  and 
broader  even  than  the  Roman  empire. 

But  here  some  one  will  ask,  in  the  special  way  of  the 
modern  unbeliever,  "  If  it  be  true  that  dreams  are  the 
natural  oracle,  why  do  not  I  have  good  dreams  ?  For 
I  am  as  good  as  another,  certainly."  But  now  it  is 
simply  for  the  same  reason,  as  that  for  which  every 
man  is  not  a  born  archangel,  nor  even  a  saint  of  the 
earth.  To  justify  the  sentiment  from  Cicero,  it  is 
enough  that  one  man  in  a  million  should  have  what  is 
called  "  a  remarkable  dream."  Just  as  one  true  poet 
in  an  age  is  enough  for  enabling  men  to  feel  them 
selves  aright,  and  to  know  of  a  glory  in  the  world,  sur 
passing  that  of  Mammon,  and  an  interest,  compared 
with  which  battles  and  revolutions  are  but  bubbles. 

In  the  Scriptures,  and  especially  the  more  ancient, 
and  as  though  more  particularly  connected  with  the 
primitive,  unsophisticated  nature  of  man,  dreams  or  vis 
ions  in  dreams  were  not  uncommon  experiences,  whence 
men  might  infer  themselves  to  be  within  spiritual 
reach.  The  sentiment  in  Cicero  as  to  oracular  dreams, 
pagan  though  it  be,  coincides  with  what  is  said  in  the 
book  of  Job  by  Elihu,  "  For  God  speaketh  once,  yea, 
twice,  yet  man  perceiveth  it  not.  In  a  dream,  in  a 
vision  of  the  night,  when  deep  sleep  falleth  upon  men, 
in  slumberings  upon  the  bed,  then  he  openeth  the  ears 
of  men  and  sealeth  their  instruction,  that  he  may  with- 


MIRACLES  AND   PNEUMATOLOGY.  333 

draw  man  from  his  purpose  and  hide  pride  from  man." 
Spiritual  susceptibility  during  sleep,  or  capacity  for 
visions  like  dreams  while  asleep,  would  seem  to  have 
constituted  a  prophet.  From  the  pillar  of  cloud  at 
the  door  of  the  tabernacle  the  Lord  said,  "  Hear  now 
my  words :  If  there  be  a  prophet  among  you,  I  the 
Lord  will  make  myself  known  unto  him  in  a  vision, 
and  will  speak  unto  him  in  a  dream." 

But  the  susceptibility  to  spiritual  influence  through 
which  a  man  in  his  sleep  may  have  had  his  soul  ad 
dressed  by  angels  or  spirits,  though  it  may  have  been 
a  peculiarity  with  him  for  its  greatness,  was  yet  cer 
tainly  not  so  for  its  nature.  It  is  the  action  of  the 
Spirit  and  that  susceptibility  which  all  men  have,  in  a 
greater  or  less  degree,  which  is  referred  to  in  the 
prophecies  of  Joel.  "  And  ye  shall  know  that  I  am 
in  the  midst  of  Israel,  and  that  I  am  the  Lord  your 
God,  and  none  else ;  and  my  people  shall  never  be 
ashamed.  And  it  shall  come  to  pass  afterward  that  I 
will  pour  out  my  Spirit  upon  all  flesh  :  and  your  sons 
and  your  daughters  shall  prophesy ;  your  old  men 
shall  dream  dreams,  your  young  men  shall  see  visions  : 
and  also  upon  the  servants  and  upon  the  handmaids 
in  those  days  will  I  pour  out  my  Spirit."  Let  there 
be  some  change  which  shall  refine  the  flesh  of  my 
body ;  or  let  me  experience  all  that  is  meant  by  being 
born  again ;  or  let  my  faculties  open  heavenwards  by 
the  intensity  of  my  faith ;  or  let  me  be  within  reach 
of  some  Pentecostal  outpouring  of  the  Spirit ;  and  I 
should  then  know  of  myself,  how  it  was  that  "  God 
came  to  Abimelech  in  a  dream  by  night";  and  how 
true  were  the  words  of  Jacob  about  himself,  "  The  an- 


334  MIRACLES  AND   PNEUMATOLOGY. 

gel  of  God  spake  unto  me  in  a  dream,  saying,  Jacob  : 
and  I  said,  Here  am  I  "  ;  and  how  it  was  as  natural  as 
man  talking  with  man,  when  Jesus  Christ  in  heaven 
talked  with  the  spirit  of  Paul,  while  his  body  was 
asleep  in  a  house  hard  by  the  synagogue  in  Corinth. 
"  Then  spake  the  Lord  to  Paul  in  the  night  by  a  vision, 
Be  not  afraid,  but  speak,  and  hold  not  thy  peace  ;  for 
I  am  with  thee,  and  no  man  shall  set  on  thee  to  hurt 
thee ;  for  I  have  much  people  in  this  city." 

The  manner  in  which  Paul  was  waked  up  in  spirit, 
while  his  body  was  asleep,  is  a  way  which  is  possible 
with  all  men,  however  improbable  it  may  be,  that  there 
should  ever  be  common  experience  of  it.  And  it  is 
of  our  nature,  that  in  deep  sleep  possibly  our  ears 
might  be  opened,  as  Elihu  said,  and  instruction  be  in 
fused  into  us.  And  when  Pharaoh  and  Nebuchadnez 
zar  were  inspired  with  dreams,  which  were  concurrent 
with  Divine  Providence,  it  was  through  their  natural 
susceptibility  to  spiritual  influence,  and  not  through 
such  an  operation  of  Almightiness,  as  would  be  neces 
sary  for  making  a  statue  of  Hercules  dream  and  re 
member. 

The  dream  was  described  by  Cicero  as  being  a  nat 
ural  oracle,  in  contradistinction  to  other  oracles,  which 
were  got  from  gods  and  demons  by  various  artificial 
means.  At  Delphi,  they  were  obtained  through  a 
woman,  who  was  supposed  to  be  entranced  by  Apollo  ; 
at  Lebadea,  after  certain  ceremonies  of  purification, 
the  oracle  was  got  in  the  dark  cave  of  Trophonius, 
sometimes  from  a  voice  there,  and  sometimes  by  other 
means.  In  Greece,  there  was  a  cave,  which  Pausanias 
saw  by  the  wayside,  in  which  was  a  statue  with  a 


MIRACLES   AND   PNEUMATOLOGY.  335 

table  before  it,  and  at  which  oracles  were  to  be  ob 
tained  by  the  throwing  of  dice.  And  there  was  a 
temple  in  Egypt,  at  which  oracles  were  got  by  asking 
questions  before  a  wooden  image,  which  was  thought 
to  answer  by  shaking  its  arms  when  possessed  by  a 
demon. 

To  all  the  preceding  ways  of  obtaining  oracles  the 
Jew  would  have  been  opposed.  He  would  have  ac 
knowledged  them  as  being  real,  probably;  but  he 
would  have  repeated  to  himself  the  commandment,  "  I 
am  the  'Lord  thy  God  which  have  brought  thee  out  of 
the  land  of  Egypt,  out  of  the  house  of  bondage.  Thou 
shalt  have  no  other  gods  before  me."  But  the  Jew 
would  have  joined  with  Cicero,  as  to  his  sentiment 
about  the  dream-faculty,  and  would  have  acknowl 
edged  it,  for  a  part  of  the  primitive  religion,  which 
was  before  Abraham  was. 

As  to  dreams,  which  have  been  vision-like  for  veracity, 
there  is  an  allowance  to  be  made,  according  to  the  doc 
trine  of  chances,  for  cases  of  mere  coincidence.  But 
after  everything  has  been  said  and  allowed  for,  it  would 
seem  as  though  in  every  country  there  may  always 
have  been  occurring  dreams  of  an  extraordinary  na 
ture,  enough,  fairly  considered,  to  make  everybody  feel 
himself  to  be  a  creature  of  spiritual  faculty,  and  spirit 
ually  connected. 

But  at  this  point  there  are  persons  who  would  ex 
claim  together,  as  one  man,  "  Dreams  !  and  meant  seri 
ously  too !  Dreams !  as  though  there  ever  could  be 
anything  in  a  dream  !  It  is  too  ridiculous  ! "  But  is 
Plato  then  ridiculous ;  or  is.  Socrates  ?  Is  Plutarch 
ridiculous  ;  or  are  the  philosophers  and  heroes  of  whom 


336  MIRACLES  AND  PNEUMATOLOGY. 

lie  is  the  biographer,  mostly  ridiculous  ?  Ridicule  !  was 
Cicero  a  subject  for  it ;  or  of  the  two  Pliny s,  was  either 
the  elder  or  the  younger  ;  or  was  Galen  ?  And  can  a 
subject  be  ridiculous,  whereon  as  to  belief,  along  with 
the  foregoing  great  names,  nearly  and  probably,  all  the 
Fathers  of  the  Church  coincide,  from  Polycarp  to  St. 
Augustine  ?  And  whether  intended  or  not,  it  cannot 
but  be  a  laugh  of  pitiable  inanity,  which  happens  to  be 
turned  simultaneously  against  Cardan  and  Petrarch  ; 
against  the  Emperor  Theodosius  and  the  Emperor 
Charles  the  Fifth  of  Spain ;  against  Francis  Bacon  and 
Halley  the  astronomer ;  against  Sir  Christopher  Wren 
and  Sir  Roger  L'Estrange  ;  against  Defoe  and  — 

But  enough  of  this  !  For  there  is  no  man  but  must 
feel  abashed,  when  actually  he  finds  himself  to  be 
lightly  laughing  in  the  grand  awful  face  of  antiquity, 
and  with  the  fathers,  martyrs,  and  doctors  of  the  Church 
against  him. 

But  indeed  the  man,  who  is  the  grandchild  of  the 
last  century,  and  the  child  of  this,  is  almost  necessarily 
a  person  of  contradictory  notions.  And  so  it  often 
happens  that  a  person  will  say  philosophically  what, 
if  it  were  true,  would  be  ruinous  of'  the  religious  belief, 
which  he  holds  even  fervently.  And  that  is,  just  as 
there  have  been  many  divines,  who  with  pleading  for 
the  Church,  have  made  void  the  Gospel. 

Nor,  should  this  argument  seem  to  be  novel,  is  it 
therefore  necessarily  the  less  trustworthy.  For,  even 
as  to  his  bodily  constitution,  man  in  these  latter  days 
is  continually  discovering  something  new,  and  by  which 
he  finds  his  health,  or  temporal  salvation,  to  be  largely 
dependent  on  laws,  of  which  Abraham  knew  nothing, 


MIRACLES   AND   PNEUMATOLOGY.  337 

nor  Julius  Caesar,  nor  yet  Martin  Luther.  The  primary 
facts  of  life,  as  connected  with  his  skin  and  lungs,  man 
is  but  just  now  learning  ;  and  so  it  may  well  be  sup 
posed,  that,  as  connected  with  his  spiritual  nature,  there 
may  be  common  things,  of  which  the  full  significance 
has  not  yet  been  taken. 

A  dream  of  much  particularity  which  comes  true,  — 
an  oracular  dream  argues  not  only  that  man  can  have 
dreams  which  come  true,  but  that  he  can  dream  under 
influence,  and  from  spiritual  connection  of  some  kind. 
And  if  one  man  can  dream  in  that  way,  so  perhaps  in 
that  way  may  another  be  capable  of  inspiration,  even 
while  wide  awake.  That  kind  of  dream,  which  Cicero 
calls  the  natural  oracle,  is  presumptive  proof  as  to  the 
actuality  of  revelation,  and  as  to  the  reality  of  those 
spiritual  faculties  in  man  which  Christianity  presup 
poses. 

There  have  been  some  eight  or  ten  dreams,  which 
have  been  had  and  published  in  this  neighborhood, 
during  the  last  twenty  years,  which,  for  an  earnest 
thinker,  would  be  more  valuable  than  the  whole  of 
some  metaphysical  libraries.  Because  one  fact  accruing 
from  nature  is  better  than  all  the  argument  which  is 
inconsistent  with  it,  however  ingenious  and  laborious  it 
may  be. 

What  is  properly  the  dream-faculty  may  be  regarded 
as  the  primitive  germ  of  revelation.  It  is  also  a  simple 
and  good  proof  that  man  is  spiritually  connected ;  and 
that  therefore  also  he  himself  may  probably  be  a  spirit. 

Actually  and  with  full  consciousness  to  feel  himself 
to  be  a  living  soul,  by  any  trial,  test,  or  experience, 
within   the   range  of  his  own  understanding,  is  the 
15  v 


338  MIRACLES  AND  PNEUMATOLOGY. 

hunger  and  thirst  of  myriads ;  though  also  it  is  a 
craving,  which  is  as  dull  as  despair  itself.  And  all 
that  merely  primitive  want  might  for  many  a  man  be 
satisfied  by  a  dream,  which  has  been  had  by  some  poor 
chastened  widow,  in  his  neighborhood,  anxious  about 
her  absent  son ;  only  that  theology  has  got  so  far  away 
from  common  life,  that  it  would  wish  to  scout  the 
smallest  possible  miracle  of  the  present  day,  for  fear  of 
being  challenged  by  science,  in  the  names  of  uniformity 
and  law.  But  actually,  though  those  words  are  good 
enough  for  a  lecture-room,  they  are  altogether  inade 
quate  'for  what  Christians  ought  to  be  ready  to  main 
tain  in  the  Church. 

How  many  persons  there  are  who  sit  in  church,  only 
to  feel  as  though  the  darkness  about  them  were  grow 
ing  more  visible  !  How  many  men  of  ability  there 
are,  who  have  the  gospel  sound  to  them  like  an  un 
known  tongue  !  Said  the  voice  which  was  heard  by 
St.  John  when  he  wras  in  the  Spirit,  "  He  that  hath  an 
ear,  let  him  hear  what  the  Spirit  saith  unto  the 
churches."  But  how  can  he  well  hear  to-day,  who 
cannot  well  conceive  how  the  Spirit  could  ever  have 
spoken  ?  Persons  whose  ways  of  thinking  have  been 
almost  altogether  materialized,  —  how  should  they  un 
derstand  the  things  of  the  Spirit  ?  "  The  God  of  the 
spirits  of  all  flesh,"  -  -  how  possibly  can  they  pray  to 
him  in  the  fulness  of  belief,  who  think  that  they 
themselves,  perhaps,  are  flesh  only  ? 

Yet  if  men  were  willing  to  be  taught  by  it,  a  dream 
which  is  a  dream  in  Cicero's  sense  of  the  word,  or  in 
that  of  the  Bible,  would  be  enough  for  any  ordinary 
degree  of  doubt  as  to  the  spiritual  world.  But  the 


MIRACLES   AND   PNEUMATOLOGY.  339 

dread  of  acknowledging  in  any  way  what  science 
might  perhaps  challenge  for  a  miracle  and  a  violation 
of  law,  is  the  nightmare  of  theology  at  this  time. 
However,  it  is  what  is  nothing  more  than  a  nightmare ; 
and  it  will  probably  soon  be  over. 


THE   SPIRIT  AND   THE  OLD   TESTAMENT. 


Scriptures  are  the  history  of  a  particular  peo- 
pie,  or  line  and  succession  of  persons,  as  they 
were  acted  upon  by  the  Spirit  of  God. 

When  everything  was  nothing,  and  while  as  yet 
darkness  was  on  the  face  of  the  deep,  it  was  the  begin 
ning  when  "  the  Spirit  of  God  moved  upon  the  face  of 
the  waters."  Also,  "  by  his  Spirit  he  hath  garnished  the 
heavens."  And  said  the  Psalmist,  as  he  sang  in  view 
of  both  Lebanon  and  the  sea,  "  Thou  sendest  forth  thy 
spirit,  they  are  created," — the  stork  to  house  herself  in 
the  fir-tree,  the  fowls  of  heaven  to  sing  in  the  branches, 
the  young  lions  to  roar  after  their  prey,  the  wild  asses 
with* their  instinct  for  the  springs  among  the  hills,  grass 
as  it  grows  for  the  cattle,  and  herbs  for  the  service  of 
man.  And  not  these  only,  even  though  along  with  the 
sea  and  leviathan  !  For  also  "  the  Spirit  of  God  hath 
made  me,  and  the  breath  of  the  Almighty  hath  given 
me  life." 

But  there  is  another  and  higher  sense  of  the  phrase 
"Spirit  of  God"  than  that  use  of  it.  The  Spirit  of 
God  created  man,  as  it  made  the  elephant,  and  it 
might  have  maintained  man  as  man,  at  a  certain  uni 
formity  of  intelligence  and  character,  just  as,  for  thou 
sands  of  years,  it  has  perpetuated  nature  in  elephants. 
As  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  Spirit  of  God  finds  in  man  a 


THE   SPIRIT   AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT.  341 

susceptibility  which  the  elephant  has  not.  And  it  is 
this  spiritual  susceptibility  which  is  the  great,  grand 
distinction  of  man. 

Men  are  the  creatures  of  God,  as  the  elephant  and 
the  lion  are,  and  as  the  dove  and  the  provident,  skilful 
beaver.  But  the  elephant  lives  from  God  more  largely 
than  the  dove ;  and  man,  as  a  biped  with  his  head 
erect,  lives  from  God  more  fully  than  the  elephant. 
But  the  truth  as  to  man  is  more  than  that ;  for  he 
does  not  merely  live  and  move  like  a  superior  elephant, 
but  also  he  has  and  derives  his  being  like  a  child  of 
God.  In  the  great  sphere  of  life  of  which  God  is  the 
fulness,  man  lives  in  God,  and  yet  in  some  way  as 
though  detached  from  him.  And  it  is  through  that 
way,  and  because  of  it,  that  man  is  specially  dear  to 
God,  and  of  more  value  than  many  sparrows ;  as  being 
not  only  a  creature  of  instinct,  but  also  a  child  capable 
of  instruction,  and  a  soul  susceptible  of  inspiration ;  and 
as  being  possibly  a  son,  for  companionship  with  him, 
to  all  eternity,  through  the  Holy  Ghost.  And  the 
Scriptures  illustrate  this  relation,  as  it  exists  and  al 
ways  has  existed  between  God  and  man. 

By  the  gospel,  human  beings  are  invited  to  become 
sons  and  daughters  of  the  Most  High.  But  often  per 
sons  avert  their  faces  from  God,  and  turn  and  look 
along  with  the  people,  as  to  whom,  once  Jesus  said, 
"  Ye  are  of  your  father,  the  devil."  And  it  is  only  just 
as  we  believe  in  its  being  possible  for  us  to  become  the 
children  of  God,  that  the  Bible  belongs  to  us,  as  a  thing 
of  any  meaning. 

In  the  Scriptures,  the  special  action  of  the  Spirit  of 
God  on  the  soul  is  called  "  the  word  of  God."  Some- 


342  THE  SPIRIT   AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

times  it  is  so  called,  when  it  is  simply  a  Divine  mes 
sage  to  an  individual ;  and  sometimes  it  is  so  called 
when  it  is  addressed  to  a  nation ;  and  it  is  also  used 
for  that  expressiveness  of  the  Divine  will,  which  was 
the  act  of  Creation ;  as  when  Peter  writes  "  that  by 
the  word  of  God  the  heavens  were  of  old,  and  the 
earth  standing  out  of  the  water,  and  in  the  water." 

"  The  word  of  the  Lord  "  is  a  special  completed  act 
of  "  the  Spirit,  of  the  Lord  "  ;  and  always  it  is  inspira 
tion,  as  unto  the  formless,  void  world  for  creation ;  or 
into  the  consciousness  of  a  prophet,  for  a  communica 
tion  ;  or  into  the  mind  of  a  man,  like  David,  for  the 
beauty  of  a  psalm.  And  in  the  personality  of  Jesus, 
the  word  was  so  completely  incarnated,  as  that  himself 
Jesus  became  "  the  word "  itself.  "  And  the  Word 
was  made  flesh  and  dwelt  among  us  (and  we  beheld 
his  glory,  the  glory  as  of  the  only-begotten  of  the 
Father),  full  of  grace  and  truth." 

Sometimes  the  word  of  the  Lord  was  a  voice  in  the 
ear  of  a  prophet ;  and  sometimes  it  was  a  picture  before 
the  eye  of  his  mind ;  and  sometimes  it  was  the  appear 
ance  of  an  angel.  And  there  are  two  or  three  other 
ways,  by  which  the  word  of  the  Lord  was  given,  which 
are  mentioned  in  the  Old  Testament,  though  obscurely, 
and  which  perhaps  were  never  commonly  used. 

What  books  have  been  written  and  what  nonsense 
has  been  talked  about  the  Jewish  theocracy  !  It  has 
been  supposed  to  have  been  the  government  of  a  priest 
hood,  which  is  exactly  what  it  was  not.  And  it  has 
been  supposed  to  have  been  mainly  and  characteristi 
cally  the  sacerdotal  ministration  of  a  written  law,  which 
also  it  was  not.  Prophets  were  the  theocracy,  —  men 


THE   SPIRIT   AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT.  343 

who  could  even  denounce  the  priesthood,  and  who  were 
not  necessarily  even  Levites.  They  were  men  of  God, 
and  not  merely  men  of  the  temple  of  God. 

As  was  said  to  the  Jews  in  the  wilderness  of  Sinai, 
"  Hear  now  my  words :  If  there  be  a  prophet  among 
you,  I  the  Lord  will  make  myself  known  unto  him  in 
a  vision,  and  will  speak  unto  him  in  a  dream."  But 
then  it  is  added  as  to  Moses,  "  with  him  will  I  speak 
mouth  to  mouth,  even  apparently  and  not  in  dark 
speeches."  And  of  how  that  was,  this  is  an  instance. 
In  the  wilderness,  two  men  appealed  to  Moses  about  a 
ceremonial  difficulty.  "And  Moses  said  unto  them, 
Stand  still,  and  I  will  hear  what  the  Lord  will  com 
mand  concerning  you."  And  standing  still  with  the 
people  about  him,  under  the  eastern  sky,  Moses  listened 
for  a  voice,  which  nobody  else  could  hear.  And  that 
voice  he  heard  spiritually.  "  And  the  Lord  spake  unto 
Moses,  saying,  Speak  unto  the  children  of  Israel,  saying, 
If  any  man  of  you  or  of  your  posterity  shall  be  unclean 
by  reason  of  a  dead  body,  or  be  in  a  journey  afar  off. 
yet  he  shall  keep  the  passover  unto  the  Lord."  Also 
that  precept,  as  being  got  and  given  in  that  manner, 
is  an  instance  of  theocracy. 

And  now,  how  were  prophets  commissioned,  or  how 
did  a  man  know  himself  to  be  a  prophet  ?  David  be 
came  a  prophet,  with  being  anointed  for  king  ;  though 
perhaps  his  spiritual  susceptibility  may  have  been  a 
reason  for  his  being  chosen  as  king.  He  was  fetched 
into  the  house  from  keeping  the  sheep.  "  Now  he  was 
ruddy,  and  withal  of  a  beautiful  countenance,  and 
goodly  to  look  to.  And  the  Lord  said,  Arise,  anoint 
him  :  for  this  is  he.  Then  Samuel  took  the  horn  of 


344  THE   SPIRIT   AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

oil,  and  anointed  him  in  the  midst  of  his  brethren. 
And  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  came  upon  David  from  that 
day  forward."  Very  different  from  that  is  the  account 
Jeremiah  gives  of  himself.  "  The  word  of  the  Lord 
came  unto  me,  saying,  Before  I  formed  thee  in  the 
belly  I  knew  thee  ;  and  before  thou  cajnest  forth  out 
of  the  womb  I  sanctified  thee  :  and  I  ordained  thee  a 
prophet  unto  the  nations.  Then  said  I,  Ah,  Lord  God  ! 
behold,  I  cannot  speak ;  for  I  am  a  child.  But  the 
Lord  said  unto  me,  Say  not,  I  am  a  child  :  for  thou 
slialt  go  to  all  that  I  shall  send  thee,  and  whatsoever  I 

o 

command  thee  thou  slialt  speak.  Be  not  afraid  of  their 
faces  :  for  I  am  with  thee  to  deliver  thee,  saith  the 
Lord."  And  very  different  again  from  the  call  of  young 
Jeremiah,  the  son  of  Hilkiah,  was  the  experience  of  the 
prophet  Amos.  "  Then  answered  Amos,  and  said  to 
Amaziah,  I  was  no  prophet,  neither  was  I  a  prophet's 
son :  but  I  was  a  herdman,  and  a  gatherer  of  sycamore 
fruit :  and  the  Lord  took  me  as  I  followed  the  flock, 
and  the  Lord  said  unto  me,  Go,  prophesy  unto  my  peo 
ple  Israel."  And  when  Barak  received  the  command 
ment  of  the  Lord,  in  connection  with  a  striking  episode 
in  Jewish  history,  it  was  through  Deborah.  And  what 
is  to  be  read  about  her  is  like  a  wonderful  little  pic 
ture.  "  And  Deborah  a  prophetess,  the  wife  of  Lapidoth, 
she  judged  Israel  at  that  time.  And  she  dwelt  under 
the  palm-tree  of  Deborah,  between  Eamah  and  Beth-el 
in  Mount  Ephraim ;  and  the  children  of  Israel  came 
up  to  her  for  judgment." 

And  it  would  seem  also  that  "  the  word  of  the  Lord  " 
found  its  recipients  or  prophets,  quite  irrespectively  of 
worldly  circumstances.  Kings  and  peasants  were  alike 


THE  SPIRIT  AND  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.     345 

to  it.  Solomon  was  a  youthful  king  when  "  in  Gibeon, 
the  Lord  appeared  to  Solomon  in  a  dream  by  night : 
and  God  said,  Ask  what  I  shall  give  thee,"  And  it 
was  while  he  was  "  in  all  his  glory  "  that  "  God  gave 
Solomon  wisdom  and  understanding  exceeding  much, 
and  largeness  of  heart,  even  as  the  sand  that  is  on  the 
sea-shore."  And  when  the  Queen  of  Sheba,  having 
heard  of  what  Solomon  had  become  through  "  the  name 
of  the  Lord,"  journeyed  to  Jerusalem  to  try  his  wis 
dom,  she  found  him  surrounded  by  pomp  and  grandeur. 
But  his  magnificence  was  no  bar  to  the  attendant  power 
which  fed  his  intellect  with  wisdom.  And  as  he  heard 
questions  she  asked,  answers  like  miracles  rose  in  his 
mind.  "  And  Solomon  told  her  all  her  questions  :  there 
was  not  anything  hid  from  the  king  which  he  told  her 
not."  At  one  time  Elijah  lived  by  a  brook  and  was 
fed  by  ravens ;  and  at  another  time  he  was  lodged  by 
a  widow  whose  mind  had  been  miraculously  prepared 
for  receiving  him.  "  And  when  he  came  to  the  gate 
of  the  city,  behold,  the  widow  woman  was  there  gath 
ering  of  sticks."  A  priest  was  always  probably  far 
above  want,  because  he  was  always  well  provided  for, 
by  his  birthright.  But  for  the  prophet,  there  was  no 
provision  in  life,  which  might  be  called  special ;  unless 
indeed  that  quality  might  be  so  called  by  which  na 
ture  answers  to  nature,  and  persons  who  are  spirit 
ually-minded  are  drawn  towards  those  who  are  in  any 
way  like  themselves,  such  as  prophets,  men  of  genius, 
and  sufferers  living  by  faith.  Owing  to  the  kind  im 
pulse  of  a  Jewish  lady,  there  is  to  be  read,  what  is  like 
a  sudden  distinct  glimpse  of  a  prophet  moving  about. 
"  And  it  fell  on  a  day  that  Elisha  passed  to  Shunem, 
15* 


346  THE   SPIRIT   AND  THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

where  was  a  great  woman  ;  and  she  constrained  him  to 
eat  bread.  And  so  it  was,  that,  as  oft  as  he  passed  by, 
he  turned  in  thither  to  eat  bread.  And  she  said  unto 
her  husband,  Behold,  now,  I  perceive  that  this  is  a 
holy  man  of  God,  which  passeth  by  us  continually. 
Let  us  make  a  little  chamber,  I  pray  thee,  on  the  wall ; 
and  let  us  set  for  him  there  a  bed,  and  a  table,  and  a 
stool,  and  a  candlestick:  and  it  shall  be  when  he 
cometh  to  us,  that  he  shall  turn  in  thither.  And  it 
fell  on  a  day  that  he  came  thither,  and  he  turned  into 
the  chamber,  and  lay  there."  The  prophet  was  very 
unlike  a  priest  in  his  mind,  and  so  he  was  in  his  ex 
perience,  usually,  in  one  way  or  another.  Says  St. 
James,  "Take,  my  brethren,  the  prophets,  who  have 
spoken  in  the  name  of  the  Lord,  for  an  example  of 
suffering  affliction,  and  of  patience." 

And  now  what  was  the  position  of  the  prophet  so 
cially  ?  He  had  a  right  to  utter  himself,  but  on  certain 
conditions,  which  might  involve  even  his  life.  Ahab 
the  king  wanted  the  word  of  the  Lord  from  the  prophet 
Micaiah ;  and  was  enraged  by  what  he  got ;  notwith 
standing  that  the  prophet  had  said,  "As  the  Lord 
liveth,  what  the  Lord  saith  unto  me  that  will  I  speak." 
Whereupon  a  false  prophet,  a  prophet  of  Baal,  proba 
bly,  who  had  been  flattering  the  king  along  with  four 
hundred  others,  Zedekiah,  "  went  near  and  smote  Mi 
caiah  on  the  cheek,  and  said,  Which  way  went  the 
Spirit  of  the  Lord  from  me  to  speak  unto  thee  ?  And 
Micaiah  said,  Behold,  thou  shalt  see  in  that  day,  when 
thou  shalt  go  into  an  inner  chamber  to  hide  thyself. 
And  the  king  of  Israel  said,  Take  Micaiah,  and  carry 
him  back  unto  Amon  the  governor  of  the  city,  and 


THE  SPIRIT  AND  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.     347 

to  Joash  the  king's  son,  and  say,  Thus  saith  the  king, 
Put  this  fellow  in  the  prison,  and  feed  him  with  bread 
of  affliction,  and  with  water  of  affliction,  until  I  come 
in  peace.  And  Micaiah  said,  If  thou  return  at  all  in 
peace,  the  Lord  hath  not  spoken  by  me.  And  he  said, 
Hearken,  0  people,  every  one  of  you."  Then  the  king 
went  up  to  Bamoth-Gilead  to  battle,  and  never  came 
back ;  and  the  prophet  with  having  his  prophecy  ful 
filled,  saved  his  life,  according  to  the  law. 

And  of  what  the  prophet  was  among  the  people,  for 
his  work,  as  compared  with  the  priest,  there  is  an  illus 
tration  in  one  of  the  prophecies  of  Hosea.  The  priest 
was  the  man  of  ritual,  and  the  prophet  was  the  man  of 
the  Spirit.  "  0  Ephraim,  what  shall  I  do  unto  thee  ?  0 
Judah,  what  shall  I  do  unto  thee  ?  for  your  goodness 
is  as  a  morning  cloud,  and  as  the  early  dew  it  goeth 
away.  Therefore  have  I  hewed  them  by  the  prophet ; 
I  have  slain  them  by  the  w^ords  of  my  mouth :  and 
thy  judgments  were  as  the  light  that  goeth  forth.  For 
I  desired  mercy,  and  not  sacrifice ;  and  the  knowledge 
of  God  more  than  burnt-offerings."  And  as  Christian 
ity  becomes,  as  certainly  more  and  more  it  will  become, 
a  ministration  of  the  Spirit,  it  will  be  well  to  remem 
ber  and  know  thoroughly,  that  the  Holy  Ghost  may 
probably  get  itself  uttered,  not  so  much  through  func 
tionaries  of  the  Church,  as  through  those  whom  the 
Spirit,  for  any  reason,  may  find  to  be  approachable ;  and 
who  perhaps  may  often  seem  to  be  but  mere  earthen 
vessels,  when  compared  with  honored  and  honorable 
personages,  arrayed,  it  may  be,  in  official  robes,  and  in 
vested  with  the  privileges  of  high  places. 

But  now  how  was  the  prophet  received  ?     Exactly 


348  THE   SPIRIT   AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

as  conscience  is  received  to-day ;  and  those  who  did  not 
want  to  know  of  him  could  ignore  him.  And  those 
persons,  who  were  actually  reached  by  his  words,  could 
do  with  God  in  his  words,  just  as  they  were  in  the 
habit  of  doing  with  God  in  the  suggestions  of  their 
own  consciences ;  they  could  exclude  him,  in  some 
way,  or  else  elude  him.  There  had  been  the  grossest 
wickedness  ;  and  with  an  impulse  from  the  Lord,  "  Na 
than  said  to  David,  Thou  art  the  man."  And  being 
charged  thus  and  threatened,  "  David  said  unto  Nathan, 
I  have  sinned  against  the  Lord.  And  Nathan  said 
unto  David,  The  Lord  also  hath  put  away  thy  sin ;  thou 
shalt  not  die." 

But  David  was  a  man  of  conscience,  as  well  as  pas 
sion.  Two  or  three  hundred  years  after  him  there  was 
a  prophet,  who  did  not  get  even  from  a  priest  that  ac 
knowledgment  of  his  character  which  David  would 
have  left  his  throne  to  yield.  Amos,  the  prophet,  had 
terrible  truths  to  utter.  But  it  was  not  precisely  so ; 
for  Amos  himself  actually  had  nothing  whatever  to 
say,  as  being  simply  a  man  of  the  country,  and  spe 
cially  of  sheepfolds  and  sycamore-tr.ees.  But  it  hap 
pened  to  him  that  he  became  at  a  particular  time  the 
mouth-piece  of  the  Lord,  because,  as  he  said,  the  Spirit 
of  the  Lord  took  him.  And,  at  Bethel,  he  had  visions, 
which  he  told  of,  as  of  the  Lord,  in  awful  action  among 
men.  But  Amafiah,  the  priest  of  Bethel,  was  thereby 
greatly  scandalized,  as  indeed  well  he  might  have  been, 
as  a  chaplain  to  royalty.  "  Also  Amaziah  said  unto 
Amos,  0  thou  seer,  go,  flee  thee  away  into  the  land 
of  Judah,  and  there  eat  bread,  and  prophesy  there : 
but  prophesy  not  at  Beth-el,  for  it  is  the  king's  chapel, 


THE   SPIRIT   AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT.  349 

and  it  is  the  king's  court."  The  way  of  this  priest  of 
the  court  held  good  for  eight  hundred  years,  so  as  that 
when  there  was  a  great  excitement  about  John  the 
Baptist,  in  speaking  to  the  people,  Jesus  said,  "  Behold, 
they  which  are  gorgeously  apparelled,  and  live  delicately, 
are  in  king's  courts.  But  what  went  ye  out  for  to  see  ? 
A  prophet  ?  Yea,  I  say  unto  you,  and  much  more 
than  a  prophet."  But  even  though  the  Baptist  was 
worthy  of  this  testimonial,  and  was  "  more  than  a 
prophet,"  yet  not  only  was  his  life  apart  from  the 
court,  but  even  it  was  passed  outside  of  the  region  of 
respectability.  And  also  said  Stephen  to  the  bigots 
about  him,  just  before  he  was  stoned  to  death,  "  Ye  do 
always  resist  the  Holy  Ghost :  as  your  fathers  did,  so 
do  ye.  Which  of  the  prophets  have  not  your  fathers 
persecuted  ?  "  But  about  the  prophets,  complaint  was 
not  always  of  persecution,  but  sometimes  of  something 
else,  as  bad  or  worse  perhaps  than  that.  Ezekiel,  man 
of  wonder  and  fire  and  vision,  —  prophet  and  man  of 
God  !  How  was  Ezekiel  treated  ?  He  was  treated  in 
his  own  land,  just  probably  as  he  would  be  to-day  in 
Boston  or  Washington.  For  proportionately  there  are 
no  more  people '  with  a  true  ear  for  prophecy,  to-day, 
than  there  were  anciently  in  the  worst  of  times.  And 
in  what  follows,  let  it  be  noticed  that  the  audience 
were  people  of  what  may  be  called  literary  taste. 
"Also,  thou  son  of  man,  the  children  of  thy  people 
,  still  are  talking  against  thee  by  the  walls,  and  in  the 
doors  of  the  houses,  and  speak  one  to  another,  every 
one  to  his  brother,  saying,  Come,  I  pray  you,  and  hear 
what  is  the  word  that  cometh  from  the  Lord.  And 
they  come  unto  thee  as  the  people  cometh,  and  they 


350  THE   SPIRIT   AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

sit  before  tliee  as  my  people,  and  they  hear  thy  words, 
but  they  will  not  do  them :  for  with  their  mouth  they 
show  much  love,  but  their  heart  goeth  after  their 
covetousness.  And,  lo,  thou  art  unto  them  as  a  very 
lovely  song  of  one  that  hath  a  pleasant  voice,  and  can 
play  well  on  an  instrument."  The  Spirit  of  the  Lord 
might  speak,  and  actually  the  style  only  of  the  words 
be  noticed  ! 

And  furthermore  the  prophet  was  the  prophet  of 
the  Lord,  and  not  of  Baal  or  any  other  heathen  god. 
The  prophetic  was  a  natural  susceptibility,  through 
which  a  man  might  be  a  channel  either  for  the  word 
of  the  Lord  or  for  the  influence  of  Baal.  And  indeed 
Balaam  was  up  at  the  high  place  of  Baal  with  his 
mind  and  will  against  the  Israelites,  when  words  not 
of  his  own  thinking  passed  from  his  mouth  :  and  it 
was  because  "  the  Lord  met  Balaam  and  put  a  word  in 
his  mouth."  On  finding  himself  overmastered,  Balaam 
yielded,  and  "  the  Spirit  of  God  came  upon  him  "  :  and 
the  grandeur  of  his  prophecy  was  because  of  his  be 
ing  a  man  "  which  heard  the  words  of  God,  which  saw 
the  vision  of  the  Almighty,  falling  into  a  trance,  but 
having  his  eyes  open."  It  was  through  the  prophet 
that  the  Spirit  had  its  utterance  against  those  who 
succumbed  to  the  vile  seductions  of  heathenism. 

The  Lord  said  to  Moses  that  sacrifices  should  be  of 
fered  only  at  the  door  of  the  tabernacle  of  the  congre 
gation  :  "  and  they  shall  no  more  offer  their  sacrifices 
unto  devils."  For  indeed  it  had  been  only  a  little 
while  before  that  "  they  sacrificed  unto  devils,  not  to 
God  :  to  gods  whom  they  knew  not,  to  new  gods  that 
came  newly  up,  whom  your  fathers  feared  not."  And 


THE   SPIRIT   AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT.  351 

the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  Testament  are  largely  the 
history  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  as  to  its  conflict  with  the 
devils,  and  altars,  and  prophets,  and  villanies  of  heath 
enism. 

As  soon  almost  as  the  Israelites  of  the  desert  had  all 
of  them  been  buried  in  the  land  of  promise,  "the 
children  of  Israel  did  evil  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord, 
and  served  Baalim.  And  they  forsook  the  Lord  God 
of  their  fathers,  which  brought  them  out  of  the  land 
of  Egypt,  and  followed  other  gods,  of  the  gods  of  the 
people  that  were  round  about  them,  and  bowed  them 
selves  unto  them,  and  provoked  the  Lord  to  anger. 
And  they  forsook  the  Lord,  and  served  Baal  and  Ash- 
taroth."  It  was  eight  hundred  years  later  than  that, 
t*hat  through  the  prophet  Jeremiah  the  Spirit  com 
plained  of  the  persistent  rebelliousness  of  the  Jews. 
And  in  this  passage,  let  it  be  noticed,  that  a  prophet 
was  a  man  of  prophetic  susceptibility,  who  could  let 
himself  even  prophesy  from  Baal.  "  The  priests  said 
not,  Where  is  the  Lord  ?  and  they  that  handle  the  law 
knew  me  not :  the  pastors  also  transgressed  against 
me,  and  the  prophets  also  prophesied  by  Baal,  and 
walked  after  things  that  do  not  profit."  And  it  was 
not  till  after  the  Babylonish  captivity  that  the  Jews 
became  safe  from  idolatry,  and  able  to  believe  and  glo 
ry  in  the  proclamation,  "  Hear,  0  Israel :  the  Lord  our 
God  is  one  Lord." 

Five  hundred  years  had  the  Jews  been  in  Palestine, 
and  the  adventures  of  Samson  had  become  an  ancient 
history,  and  Eli  and  Samuel,  Saul,  David,  and  Solomon 
had  been  successively  gathered  to  their  fathers,  when 
Jeroboam  "  ordained  him  priests  for  the  high  places, 


352  THE   SPIRIT   AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

and  for  the  devils."  And  what  follows  was  still  eighty 
years  later  than  the  age  of  Jeroboam.  "  And  Ahaziah 
fell  down  through  a  lattice  in  his  upper  chamber,  that 
was  in  Samaria,  and  was  sick :  and  he  sent  messengers 
and  said  unto  them,  Go,  inquire  of  Baal-zebub,  the 
god  of  Ekron,  whether  I  shall  recover  of  this  disease. 
But  the  angel  of  the  Lord  said  to  Elisha,  the  Tishbite, 
Arise,  go  up  to  meet  the  messengers  of  the  king  of  Sa 
maria,  and  say  unto  them,  Is  it  not  because  there  is 
not  a  God  in  Israel  that  ye  go  to  inquire  of  Baal- 
zebub,  the  god  of  Ekron  ?  Now,  therefore,  thus  saith 
the  Lord,  Thou  shalt  not  come  down  from  that  bed  on 
which  thou  art  gone  up,  but  shalt  surely  die.  And 
Elijah  departed."  The  messengers  thereupon  returned 
to  the  king.  "  And  he  said  unto  them,  What  manner 
of  man  was  he  which  came  up  to  meet  you,  and  told 
you  these  words  ?  And  they  answered  him,  He  was  a 
hairy  man,  and  girt  with  a  girdle  of  leather  about  his 
loins.  And  he  said,  It  is  Elijah  the  Tishbite." 

It  was  just  about  the  time  of  the  preceding  incident 
that  there  happened  what  marks  the  heathen  notion 
of  the  Jewish  theocracy.  "  And  the  prophet  came  to 
the  King  of  Israel,  and  said  unto  him,  Go,  strengthen 
thyself,  and  mark  and  see  what  thou  doest :  for  at  the 
return  of  the  year  the  King  of  Syria  will  come  up 
against  thee.  And  the  servants  of  the  King  of  Syria 
said  unto  him,  Their  gods  are  gods  of  the  hills,  therefore 
they  were  stronger  than  we  :  but  let  us  fight  against 
them  in  the  plain,  and  surely  we  shall  be  stronger  than 
they."  Three  hundred  years  later  even  than  the  period 
just  mentioned,  and  just  before  the  captivity,  the 
Spirit  spoke  through  Jeremiah  and  said,  "  Seest  thou 


THE   SPIRIT   AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT.  353 

not  what  they  do  in  the  cities  of  Judah  and  in  the 
streets  of  Jerusalem  ?  The  children  gather  wood,  and 
the  fathers  kindle  the  fire,  and  the  women  knead  their 
dough,  to  make  cakes  to  the  queen  of  heaven,  and  to 
pour  out  drink-offerings  unto  other  gods,  that  they  may 
provoke  me  to  anger."  But  what  was  threatened 
through  Moses  was  close  upon  them,  and  though  it 
was  predicted  as  being  imminent,  it  was  not  believed. 
"  I  spake  not  unto  your  fathers,  nor  commanded  them 
in  the  day  that  I  brought  them  out  of  the  land  of 
Egypt,  concerning  burnt-offerings  or  sacrifices :  but 
this  thing  commanded  I  them,  saying,  Obey  my  voice, 
and  I  will  be  your  God  and  ye  shall  be  my  people : 
and  walk  ye  in  all  the  ways  that  I  have  commanded 
you,  that  it  may  be  well  unto  you."  Also  says  the 
voice,  which  they  had  not  obeyed,  "  Since  the  day  that 
your  fathers  came  forth  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt  unto 
this  day,  I  have  even  sent  unto  you  all  my  servants  the 
prophets,  daily  rising  up  early  and  sending  them  :  yet 
they  hearkened  not  unto  me,  nor  inclined  their  ear, 
but  hardened  their  neck  :  they  did  worse  than  their 
fathers." 

During  the  eight  or  nine  centuries,  of  which  the 
last  lines  were  a  retrospect,  there  were  many  more 
prophets  than  are  known  of  now.  And  of  some 
prophets,  the  experiences  were  once  extant  as  books, 
of  which  now  only  the  titles  survive.  In  connection 
with  Solomon  alone  there  were  three  books  of  prophets, 
which  are  lost ;  as  is  evident  from  a  passage  in  the 
Second  Book  of  the  Chronicles.  "  Now  the  rest  of  the 
acts  of  Solomon,  first  and  last,  are  they  not  written  in 
the  book  of  Nathan  the  prophet,  and  in  the  prophecy 

w 


354  THE   SPIRIT   AND   THE   OLD  TESTAMENT. 

of  Abijah  the  Shilonite,  and  in  the  visions  of  Iddo  the 
seer  against  Jeroboam  the  son  of  Nebat  ?  " 

Prophets  may  have  been  numerous  or  few  in  dif 
ferent  ages.  At  one  time  there  may  have  been  "  no 
open  vision/'  and  at  another  time,  for  some  cause,  the 
prophets  may  have  "  become  wind."  And  it  might 
also  often  have  been  perhaps  that  individuals  may 
have  failed  of  getting  their  inquiries  of  the  Lord 
answered  ;  as  Saul  failed,  just  before  he  applied  to  the 
woman  at  Endor.  "  When  Saul  inquired  of  the  Lord, 
the  Lord  answered  him  not,  neither  by  dreams,  nor  by 
vision  nor  by  prophets."  But  it  would  seem  as  though 
always  "the  Spirit  of  God  —  the  word  of  the  Lord" 
—  the  voice  had  been  more  or  less  near  and  ready  for 
communication,  through  angel  or  prophet,  vision  or 
dream,  or  some  other  authorized  oracle,  from  Abraham 
to  the  captivity. 

According  to  the  Book  of  Judges,  during  a  space  of 
a  hundred  years,  apparently  there  was  no  experience 
of  a  vision,  by  any  one  ;  but  there  was  a  wonderful 
experience  as  to  angels  at  two  or  three  critical  seasons. 
Gideon  saw  an  angel  of  the  Lord,  face  to  face,  and 
talked  with  him,  and  had  from  him  one  sign  and 
another.  And  his  experience  illustrates  the  Divine 
action,  and  the  manner  in  which  one  man  can  be 
reached  in  one  way,  and  another  man  in  another  way, 
and  even  the  same  man  by  means,  both  direct  and 
circuitous.  Gideon  had  been  addressed  and  commis 
sioned  by  an  angel,  and  had  had  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord 
come  upon  him :  and  yet  it  was  by  a  dream,  which  one 
man  had  in  the  camp,  and  another  man  interpreted, 
that  he  learned  that  the  hour  had  come  for  him  and 


THE  SPIRIT   AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT.  355 

the  Spirit,  and  for  "  the  sword  of  the  Lord  and  of 
Gideon."  There  may  be  various  ways,  through  which 
the  souls  of  men  may  be  affected,  as  to  their  spiritual 
susceptibility.  An  age  of  fierce  excitement  from  bat 
tle,  and  an  age  of  long-continued,  contented  quiet 
must  necessarily  differ  as  to  what  manifestations  they 
may  be  ready  for,  from  the  Spirit.  The  age  of  Samson 
or  that  of  Jephthah  was  not  likely  to  have  had  the 
visions  of  Ezekiel  disclosed  to  it.  And  whenever 
people  were  secretly  longing  for  the  licentiousness  of 
Baal,  they  could  hardly  have  been  approachable  by  the 
Spirit  of  the  Lord,  in  any  other  way  than  through  an 
indignant  prophet. 

It  was  a  belief  with  the  Jews  that  fasting  or  a 
simple  diet  might  end  in  fitting  a  man  for  spiritual  ex 
periences.  And  even  a  prophet  would  sometimes  try 
to  prepare  himself  for  the  Spirit  by  the  soothing  effect 
of  music.  And  so  experiences  from  the  Spirit  of 
God  may  well  be  supposed  to  have  been  affected  by 
the  varying  spirit  of  the  centuries.  Also,  prophets 
open  to  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord,  evidently  had  that 
Spirit  affect  them,  according  even  to  their  state  by 
education.  The  prophecies  of  Amos  have  an  odor  of 
the  country,  which  is  sensible  to  everybody :  and  the 
prophecies  of  Jeremiah  are  uttered  in  imagery,  with 
which  he  was  furnished  by  his  personal  experience. 
And  similarly,  the  epistles  of  Paul  are  the  penmanship 
of  a  man  whose  learning  had  been  gained  at  the  feet 
of  Gamaliel,  but  whose  enlightenment  had  been  on  a 
journey  to  Damascus,  from  a  vision  of  Christ  in  glory. 
And  thus  it  may  have  been,  as  between  mortals  and 
the  world  immortal,  that  at  one  time,  influence  from 


356  THE   SPIRIT   AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

above  may  chiefly  have  been  by  dreams  and  visions, 
and  at  another  time,  through  angels,  and  at  still  another 
time,  through  prophets,  more  or  less  entranced. 

But  besides  the  preceding,  there  were  ways  of  ob 
taining  oracles  from  the  Lord,  of  which  but  little  is 
known,  and  which  may  have  answered,  only  perhaps 
at  intervals,  such  as  Teraphim,  and  Urim,  and  Thum- 
mim,  and  casting  of  lots. 

And  now  through  these  various  agencies,  with  what 
results  were  men  affected  by  the  Spirit  of  God  ?  There 
would  seem  then  to  have  been  scarcely  anything  hu 
man,  on  which  "  the  word  of  the  Lord  "  might  not  have 
been  had.  And  it  would  seem  to  have  been  obtained 
much  more  commonly  than  might,  at  first,  be  thought, 
Rebekah,  the  wife  of  Isaac,  when  she  was  about  to  be 
come  a  mother,  "  went  to  inquire  of  the  Lord  "  as  to 
her  condition,  and  was  answered  by  a  strange  and  won 
derful  prophecy.  It  is  the  only  occasion  recorded,  but 
it  cannot  probably  have  been  the  only  time  in  her  life 
of  her  inquiring  of  the  Lord.  It  is  only  incidentally 
that  it  appears  what  a  place  of  resort  the  house  of  a 
prophet  may  have  been  sometimes,  and  on  what  merely 
personal  matters  he  may  have  been  approached.  "  And 
when  they  were  come  to  the  land  of  Zuph,  Saul  said 
to  his  servant  that  was  with  him,  Come  and  let  us  re 
turn,  lest  my  father  leave  caring  for  the  asses,  and  take 
thought  for  us.  And  he  said  unto  him,  Behold  now, 
there  is  in  this  city  a  man  of  God,  and  he  is  an  honor 
able  man;  all  that  he  saith  cometh  surely  to  pass; 
now,  let  us  go  thither ;  peradventure  he  can  show  us 
our  way  that  we  should  go."  And  it  was  only  by  an 
accident,  that  the  fame  of  Elisha  as  a  healer  is  known 


THE   SPIRIT   AND   THE   QLD   TESTAMENT.  357 

to-day.  The  Syrians  had  gone  out  by  companies,  and 
had  brought  away  captive  out  of  the  land  of  Israel  a 
little  maid ;  and  she  waited  on  Naaman's  wife.  "  And 
she  said  unto  her  mistress,  Would  God  my  Lord  were 
with  the  prophet  that  is  in  Samaria  !  for  he  would  re 
cover  him  of  his  leprosy."  And  only  in  the  same  inci 
dental  manner  is  the  wide  reach  of  his  spiritual  hear 
ing  or  information  told  of.  During  a  war  with  the 
Israelites,  the  King  of  Syria  was  troubled  at  the  discov 
ery  of  his  plans  and  secrets,  and  thought  that  among 
his  servants  there  must  certainly  be  some  traitor.  "  And 
one  of  his  servants  said,  None,  my  Lord,  0  King  ;  but 
Elisha  the  prophet  that  is  in  Israel,  telleth  the  King  of 
Israel  the  words  that  thou  speakest  in  thy  chamber." 

In  art,  in  architecture,  and  in  poetry  also,  the  Spirit 
was  inspiration.  For  work  in  the  tabernacle  "the 
Lord  spake  unto  Moses,  saying,  See  I  have  called  by 
name  Bezaleel,  the  son  of  Uri,  the  son  of  Hur,  of  the 
tribe  of  Judah ;  and  I  have  filled  him  with  the  Spirit 
of  God,  in  wisdom,  and  in  understanding  and  in  knowl 
edge,  and  in  all  manner  of  workmanship,  to  devise 
cunning  works,  to  work  in  gold,  and  in  silver,  and  in 
brass."  David  wished  to  build  a  house  for  the  Lord ; 
but  he  was  forbidden  by  the  Lord,  because  of  his  hav 
ing  been  a  man  of  bloodshed  and  war.  But  he  was  al 
lowed  to  make  preparations  for  it,  for  his  son  Solomon 
to  make  use  of.  Gold  and  silver,  and  iron  and  timber, 
David  made  ready.  And  along  with  all  this  material, 
he  delivered  to  Solomon  building-plans,  of  which  the 
account  is  very  noticeable.  "  Then  David  gave  to  Solo 
mon  his  son  the  pattern  of  the  porch,  and  of  the  houses 
thereof,  and  of  the  treasuries  thereof,  and  of  the  upper 


358  THE   SPIRIT   AND   THE   OLD  TESTAMENT. 

chambers  thereof,  and  of  the  inner  parlors  thereof,  and 
of  the  place  of  the  mercy-seat,  and  the  pattern  of  all 
that  he  had  by  the  spirit,  of  the  courts  of  the  house  of 
the  Lord,  and  of  all  the  chambers  round  about,  of  the 
treasuries  of  the  house  of  God,  and  of  the  treasuries  of 
the  dedicated  things."  And  still  more  explicitly  as  to 
the  plans  and  patterns,  and  the  way  in  which  he  had 
obtained  them,  "All  this,  said  David,  the  Lord  made 
me  understand  in  writing  by  his  hand  upon  me,  even 
all  the  works  of  this  pattern."  And  as  to  that  poetry, 
in  which  men  have  gloried  and  worshipped  so  long, 
"  Now  these  be  the  last  words  of  David.  David  the 
son  of  Jesse  said,  and  the  man  who  was  raised  up 
on  high,  the  anointed  of  the  God  of  Jacob,  and  the 
sweet  psalmist  of  Israel  said,  The  Spirit  of  the  Lord 
spake  by  me,  and  his  word  was  in  my  tongue." 

For  war  also,  the  aid  of  the  Spirit  was  promised  to 
the  peculiar  people.  And  on  going  to  battle,  the  priest 
was  to  exhort  the  people  and  to  tell  them  "  The  Lord 
your  God  is  he  that  goeth  with  you,  to  fight  for  you 
against  your  enemies,  to  save  you."  On  one  occasion, 
we  read  that  the  Lord  said  to  Moses,  "  Say  unto  them, 
Go  not  up,  neither  fight,  for  I  am  not  among  you  :  lest 
ye  be  smitten  before  your  enemies."  And  on  another 
occasion  it  is  to  be  read,  "  And,  behold,  there  came  a 
prophet  unto  Ahab,  King  of  Israel,  saying,  Thus  saith 
the  Lord,  Hast  thou  seen  all  this  great  multitude  ?  be 
hold  I  will  deliver  it  into  thy  hand,  this  day :  and 
thou  shalt  know  that  I  am  the  Lord."  And  then  the 
prophet  directed  him  as  to  his  battle  array.  Samaria 
was  besieged  and  at  the  worst  extremity  from  famine. 
Elisha  sat  in  the  house  and  the  elders  with  him.  The 


THE  SPIRIT  AND  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.     359 

king  had  just  lost  his  faith,  and  was  abjuring  the  Lord : 
and  a  messenger  was  011  his  way  for  the  head  of  the 
prophet.  "  Then  Elisha  said,  Hear  ye  the  word  of  the 
Lord :  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  to-morrow,  about  this  time, 
shall  a  measure  of  fine  flour  be  sold  for  a  shekel,  and 
two  measures  of  barley  for  a  shekel,  in  the  gate  of 
Samaria."  And  so  it  happened,  because  the  Syrians 
deserted  their  camp.  "For  the  Lord  had  made  the 
host  of  the  Syrians  to  hear  a  noise  of  chariots,  and 
a  noise  of  horses,  even  the  noise  of  a  great  host :  and 
they  said  to  one  another,  Lo,  the  King  of  Israel  hath 
hired  against  us  the  kings  of  the  Hittites,  and  the 
kings  of  the  Egyptians  to  come  upon  us.  "Wherefore 
they  arose  and  fled  in  the  twilight,  and  left  their  tents, 
and  their  horses,  and  their  asses,  even  the  camp  as  it 
was,  and  fled  for  their  life." 

In  a  psalm,  which  is  like  his  autobiography  set  to 
music,  David  says  of  the  Lord,  "  He  teaclietli  my  hands 
to  war,  so  that  a  bow  of  steel  is  broken  by  mine  arms." 
And  by  these  words,  doubtless,  he  meant  something 
of  what  Jephthah  felt,  when  "  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord 
came  upon  him,"  and  like  what  Samson  experienced, 
when  "  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  began  to  move  him  at 
times  in  the  camp  of  Dan." 

Also,  the  Spirit,  for  the  Jews,  was  as  a  judge.  One 
day,  Moses  sat  in  judgment  among  the  people,  from  the 
morning  to  the  evening.  "  And  Moses  said  unto  his 
father-in-law,  Because  the  people  come  unto  me  to  in 
quire  of  God :  when  they  have  a  matter,  they  come 
unto  me  ;  and  I  judge  between  one  and  another :  and  I 
do  make  them  know  the  statutes  of  God,  and  his  laws." 
Moses  needed  as  a  judge  to  have  a  successor.  Joshua 


360  THE   SPIRIT   AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

was  appointed  as  being  a  man  in  whom  was  the  Spirit. 
And  now  how  was  he  to  judge,  how  was  he  to  be 
guided  and  directed  as  to  his  judgments  ?  "  He  shall 
stand  before  Eleazar  the  priest,  who  shall  ask  counsel 
for  him,  after  the  judgment  of  Urim  before  the  Lord." 
And  indeed  this  judgment  from  God  became  an  institu 
tion,  to  which  appeal  was  made  in  difficult  cases  of  the 
highest  importance.  "  Then  shalt  thou  arise  and  get 
thee  up  into  the  place  which  the  Lord  thy  God  shall 
choose ;  and  thou  shalt  come  unto  the  priests,  the*  Le- 
vites,  and  unto  the  judge  that  shall  be  in  those  days, 
and  inquire ;  and  they  shall  shew  thee  the  sentence 
of  judgment."  And  refusal  to  submit  to  the  sentence 
thus  rendered  was  a  capital  offence ;  on  which  judg 
ment  was  to  be  executed.  "  And  all  the  people  shall 
hear  and  fear,  and  do  no  more  presumptuously." 

Also  over  the  Israelites,  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  was 
king  ;  though  commonly  the  subjects  were  in  rebellion 
against  it,  in  much  the  same  way,  and  with  much  the 
same  results,  as  at  the  present  time,  when  men  rebel 
against  God,  and  equivocate  with  him,  and  hide  them 
selves  from  him,  as  he  looks  in  upon  them,  and  talks 
with  them  through  their  consciences.  The  Spirit  was 
King  of  kings,  after  the  Israelites,  by  asking  for  a  king 
to  be  set  over  them,  had  Saul  and  his  successors ;  and 
after  it  had  been  said  at  the  inauguration  of  Saul,  "  Ye 
have  this  day  rejected  your  God,  who  himself  saved 
you  out  of  all  your  adversities  and  your  tribulations, 
and  ye  have  said  unto  him,  Nay,  but  set  a  king  over 
us."  Saul  was  chosen  by  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord,  and 
so  was  David.  And  even  than  in  those  instances,  a  still 
more  striking  intervention  of  the  Spirit  was  in  connec- 


r 

THE  SPIRIT  AND  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.     361 

tion  with  Jeliu.  It  began  with  Elijah  at  the  end  of 
his  wonderful  experience  at  the  cave  of  Horeb.  "  And 
the  Lord  said  unto  him,  Go,  return  on  thy  way  to  the 
wilderness  of  Damascus ;  and  when  thou  contest, 
anoint  Hazael  to  be  king  over  Syria :  and  Jehu  the  son 
of  Nimshi  shalt  thou  anoint  to  be  king  over  Israel : 
and  Elisha  the  son  of  Shaphat  of  Abel-meholah,  shalt 
thou  anoint  to  be  prophet  in  thy  room."  Years  passed 
on.  "  And  Elisha  the  prophet  called  one  of  the  chil 
dren  of  the  prophets,  and  said  unto  him,  Gird  up  thy 
loins,  and  take  this  box  of  oil  in  thy  hand,  and  go  to 
Kamoth-gilead :  and  when  thou  comest  thither,  look 
out  Jehu  the  son  of  Jehoshaphat,  the  son  of  Nimshi, 
and  go  in,  and  make  him  arise  up  from  among  his 
brethren,  and  carry  him  to  an  inner  chamber:  then 
take  the  box  of  oil,  and  pour  it  on  his  head,  and  say, 
Thus  saith  the  Lord,  I  have  anointed  thee  king  over 
Israel.  Then  open  the  door,  and  nee,  and  tarry  not." 
After  this  was  done,  the  first  thing  said  to  Jehu  was, 
"  Is  all  well ;  wherefore  came  this  mad  fellow  to  thee  ? " 
But  the  end  of  it  was  that  Jehu  became  king,  and 
the  instrument  and  object  of  the  fulfilment  of  other 
prophecies. 

The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  intervened  as  to  the  election 
and  dethronement  of  kings,  and  with  advice  and  com 
mands,  as  to  foreign  powers ;  and  also,  apparently  it 
was  accessible  to  the  petitions  of  the  humblest  inquirer. 
Sometimes  "  the  word  of  the  Lord  came  "  to  a  prophet, 
wherever  he  might  happen  to  be,  and  started  him  off, 
with  a  sudden  message,  beginning,  "Thus  saith  the 
Lord,"  to  be  delivered  in  a  market-place  perhaps,  or  at 
a  palace.  And  sometimes  it  would  be  as  thus :  King 
16 


362  THE   SPIRIT   AND   THE   OLD  TESTAMENT. 

Jehoshaphat  and  Jehoram,  the  idolatrous  King  of  Israel, 
were  in  trouble  together.  "  But  Jehoshaphat  said,  Is 
there  not  here  a  prophet  of  the  Lord,  that  we  may  in 
quire  of  the  Lord  by  him  ?  And  one  of  the  King  of 
Israel's  servants  answered  and  said,  There  is  Elisha 
the  son  of  Shaphat,  which  poured  water  on  the  hands 
of  Elijah.  And  Jehoshaphat  said,  The  word  of  the 
Lord  is  with  him.  So  the  King  of  Israel,  and  Jehosh 
aphat,  and  the  King  of  Edom  went  down  to  him.  And 
Elisha  said  unto  the  King  of  Israel,  What  have  I  to  do 
with  thee  ?  Get  thee  to  the  prophets  of  thy  father, 
and  to  the  prophets  of  thy  mother." 

And  now,  how  was  it  with  Elisha  at  that  moment  ? 
He  was  very  likely  affected  in  some  such  manner  as 
Stephen  was.  He  certainly  had  not  needed  to  take 
thought  beforehand  what  he  should  say.  ISTor  could 
there  have  been  any  resisting  of  the  wisdom  and  spirit 
which  he  spoke  with.  And  not  improbably  because  of 
the  Spirit,  his  face  may  have  shone  like  the  face  of  an 
angel. 

Sometimes  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  expressed  itself 
through  a  visible  angel ;  as  Zechariah  writes  was  his 
experience.  "And  the  angel  that  talked  with  me 
came  again  and  waked  me,  as  a  man  that  is  wakened 
out  of  his  sleep,  and  said  unto  me,  What  seest  thou  ? " 
And  sometimes  the  Spirit  was  "  the  word  of  the  Lord  " 
in  human  words,  which  could,  at  first  for  the  sound  of 
them,  even  be  taken  for  the  voice  of  a  man.  Of  this 
the  experience  of  Samuel  was  an  instance,  before  he  yet 
knew  the  word  of  the  Lord.  In  the  night,  hearing 
himself  called  by  name,  once  and  again,  he  answered 
Eli,  and  went  to  him.  And  at  the  third  time  of  his 


THE   SPIRIT   AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT.  363 

answering  so,  "  Eli  perceived  that  the  Lord  had  called 
the  child."  The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  spoke  through  Jere 
miah,  when  he  was  but  a  child  ;  and  through  Elijah, 
a  hairy  man  girt  with  a  girdle,  it  confronted  Amaziah 
the  king ;  of  whom  it  is  written,  "  So  he  died,  accord 
ing  to  the  word  of  the  Lord,  which  Elijah  had  spoken." 

Not  only  was  Jehovah  the  Lord  God  of  their  wor 
ship,  for  the  Jews,  anciently,  but  also  he  was  their 
king,  the  commander-in-chief  of  their  armies,  their  su 
preme  Judge,  and  was  also  amongst  them  inspiration 
from  the  highest,  as  to  art  and  poetry.  But  indeed 
against  him  as  king,  and  perhaps  against  his  influence 
in  all  other  ways,  they  were  almost  continually  in  re 
bellion.  At  the  first  thought  of  it,  it  seems  incredible 
that  a  nation,  or  even  an  individual,  could  possibly 
rebel  against  Jehovah  as  a  king.  And  for  this  seeming 
improbability  men  have  doubted  the  Old  Testament, 
as  a  history ;  while  actually  they  themselves,  more  or 
less,  every  day,  were  rebelling  against  God,  and  pre 
varicating  with  him,  in  the  chamber  of  conscience,  just 
as  the  Jews  did  with  God  as  connected  with  their 
temple. 

The  Old  Testament  is  the  history  of  the  Spirit  of  the 
Lord,  as  a  fountain-head  of  influence  for  men,  and  su 
premacy  over  human  rebellion  and  helplessness.  That 
Spirit,  Saul  might  have,  and  might  have  it  withdrawn, 
and  Solomon  might  have  and  lose  it  with  his  becoming 
foolish.  The  Israelites,  as  its  subjects,  might  be  faith 
ful,  or  be  apostates  to  Baal ;  or  in  their  fear  of  Syria, 
they  might  look  to  Egypt  for  help.  But  whether  they 
were  dutiful  or  rebellious  ;  whether  they  were  judged 
by  Deborah  the  prophetess,  or  lived  prosperously  under 


364  THE   SPIRIT   AND   THE   OLD  TESTAMENT. 

King  Solomon,  or  were  captives  by  the  river  of  Baby 
lon,  there  was  over  them  always  the  supremacy  of  the 
Spirit,  as  it  vindicated  itself  by  judgments,  and  fulfilled 
upon  them  the  prophecies  of  its  own  inspiring,  and  got 
itself  as  to  its  ends,  praised  by  even  the  wrath  of  man. 

Jehoram  might  reign  in  Samaria,  and  Jehoshaphat  be 
King  of  Judah,  and  Mesha  might  be  King  of  Moab  and 
be  also  a  great  sheep-master ;  and  the  King  of  Syria 
might  war  against  Israel,  and  compass  Dothan  with  his 
army ;  but  it  was  the  Spirit,  as  it  spoke  from  Elisha, 
which  was  the  ruler  of  events.  From  the  prophecies 
of  Balaam  to  those  of  Malachi  are  a  thousand  years, 
but  all  through,  it  was  from  the  selfsame  Spirit,  that 
the  judges  judged  divinely,  and  the  seers  had  visions, 
and  the  prophets  prophesied,  and  the  psalmist  sang 
sweetly.  "  But  the  word  of  the  Lord  was  unto  them, 
precept  upon  precept,  precept  upon  precept ;  line  upon 
line,  line  upon  line ;  here  a  little  and  there  a  little." 
And  by  inheritance  t  in  Christ,  that  word  in  its  devel 
opment  is  ours. 

And  here  there  are  persons,  who  will  be  ready  to 
exclaim  with  one  voice,  "  The  Old  Testament !  The 
miracles  of  the  Old  Testament !  Does  the  man  know 
what  he  is  writing  about  ?  Does  not  he  know  even 
about  the  Book  of  Genesis  ?  Does  he  not  know  of  what 
Ezra  the  scribe  has  been  suspected  of  having  done  ? 
Does  he  not  know  what  is  as  good  as  certain  about  the 
Book  of  Daniel  ?  Baur  and  De  Wette,  —  has  he  never 
even  heard  of  their  names ;  Does  he  not  know  about 
the  earlier  Isaiah  and  the  later  ?  Does  he  not  know 
what  has  been  done  with  the  Old  Testament  so  ad 
mirably  and  so  thoroughly,  by  criticism,  that  is  to  say, 
by  theology  ? 


THE  SPIRIT   AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT.  365 

Truly,  the  writer  is  humbly  aware  of  all  that.  But 
lie  thinks  also  that  as  to  the  study  of  the  Scriptures,  an 
instinct  for  the  Spirit  is  quite  as  important  as  mere 
lexicology.  "  Oh,  oh  ! "  they  exclaim  again,  "  but  do  you 
believe  in  the  tower  of  Babel,  and  in  the  whale  that 
swallowed  Jonah  ?  Do  you  believe  that  ever  the  sun 
stood  still  upon  Gibeon  ?  And  if  you  do  not  believe 
in  those  things,  what  right  have  you  to  believe  in  other 
things  of  the  same  kind  ?  "  Perhaps  my  believing  fac 
ulty  may  not  be  very  large  ;  but  would  that  be  a  good 
reason  for  my  wishing  to  have  none  at  all.  Because 
my  eyes  will  not  reach  the  Pyramids,  ought  I  there 
fore  to  shut  them,  as  I  walk  about  the  streets  of  Bos 
ton  ?  A  real  believer  is  a  man  who  believes  intelli 
gently  and  not  indiscriminately.  And  now  as  to  the 
sun  standing  still,  —  have  my  opponents  never  heard 
of  figures  of  speech  :  and  though  they  often  say  that  it 
does,  yet  is  there  even  one  of  them,  who  believes  that 
ever  the  sun  does  actually  rise  ?  And  as  to  Jonah,  — 
is  there  one  of  all  my  opponents  who  can  inform  a 
good  Hebraist  as  to  the  origin  and  undoubted  meaning 
of  the  word  which  is  translated  whale  ?  And  as  to  the 
tower  of  Babel,  has  it  never  occurred  to  them,  as  it  does 
occur  to  me,  that  perhaps  some  time  that  tower  will  be 
regarded  as  having  been  singularly  monumental  in  hu 
man  history ;  and  that  the  confusion  of  tongues  may 
perhaps  come,  on  good  reasons,  to  be  accounted  as  evi 
dence  of  some  great  psychical  change  in  human  nature, 
analogous  perhaps,  in  the  infancy  of  the  race,  to  the 
change  which  takes  place  with  a  child,  when  instinct 
begins  to  yield  to  the  growth  of  reason. 

As  derived  by  creation  from  the  Godhead  in  its 


366  THE   SPIRIT   AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

unity,  it  might  be  expected  that  religiously  and  spirit 
ually  there  would  "be  analogies  which  might  corre 
spond  with  the  world  geologically.  And  in  the  early 
part  of  the  Book  of  Genesis  there  are  what  seem  like 
hints  of  such  things.  Whether  regarded  as  literal  or 
as  symbolical,  the  narrative  as  to  Adam  and  Eve  and 
Paradise  means  something.  There  is  a  curious  mention 
of  the  time  concurrently  with  the  birth  of  Enos,  when 
"  men  began  to  call  upon  the  name  of  the  Lord,"  which 
would  seem  to  mark  some  change  with  man,  rather  than 
simply  his  having  begun  to  ejaculate  devotional  words. 
"  And  the  Lord  said,  My  Spirit  shall  not  always  strive 
with  man,  for  that  he  also  is  flesh ;  yet  his  days  shall 
be  a  hundred  and  twenty  years.  There  were  giants  in 
the  earth  in  those  days ;  and  also  after  that,  when  the 
sons  of  God  came  in  unto  the  daughters  of  men,  and 
they  bare  children  to  them ;  the  same  became  mighty 
men,  which  were  of  old,  men  of  renown."  What  this 
may  mean  there  is  no  knowing,  at  present.  But  it 
will  probably  some  time  dawn  on  some  mind,  and  be 
come  apparent,  and  be  like  the  deciphering  of  some 
primeval  inscription. 

Is  it  not  in  analogy ;  is  it  not  in  recognition  of  that 
great  law  of  progress,  attendant  on  the  earth's  creation, 
to  suppose  that  its  human  inhabitants  have  been  under 
a  similar  dispensation  of  advancement  by  convulsion, 
and  thereby  also  under  a  corresponding  law  as  to  spirit 
ual  assistance  ?  Jesus  was  a  communication  of  God, 
after  another  manner  than  Moses  was :  and  so  was 
Moses  after  another  manner  than  what  Abraham  knew 
of.  And  the  terrible  miracles  from  which  the  Egyp 
tians  suffered,  and  of  the  like  of  which  there  was  some 


THE   SPIRIT  AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT.  367 

manifestation  in  the  time  of  Elijah,  when  the  Israelites 
were  succumbing  to  the  devil-worship  of  their  neigh 
bors,  —  these  would  seem  to  have  been  in  some  kind 
of  keeping  with  the  convulsive  forces  by  which  the 
earth  was  rounded  and  enriched,  and  made  ready  for 
men. 

The  philosophy  of  the  phrase,  "the  word  of  the 
Lord,"  is  spiritually  as  much  in  advance  of  mere  ra 
tionalism  as  a  rationalist  himself  is  in  advance  of  an 
elephant.  What  calls  itself  rationalism,  walks  and 
talks  by  a  lamp,  which  it  does  not  know,  has  a  hundred 
slides,  of  two  or  three  of  which  there  is  some  experi 
ence  with  a  few  persons,  even  in  this  life.  One  man 
discerns  acutely  as  to  things  within  his  vision,  while 
yet  he  is  blind  to  things  which  to  another  man  of  in 
ferior  acuteness  are  very  plain,  because  of  his  seeing 
by  a  lamp  with  another  slide.  What !  shall  we  go  on 
to  all  eternity,  seeing  just  as  we  now  see  ?  But  truly 
we  are  already  in  germ  what  we  shall  be  to  all  eter 
nity.  And  the  germinating  principle  is  already  active 
in  us  ;  and  in  some  persons  it  is  more  developed  than 
it  is  in  others,  as  may  very  credibly  be  supposed  for 
many  reasons. 

Most  men  have  eyes  only  for  material  objects,  but 
some  men  have  had  eyes  for  angels,  and  for  seeing  in 
vision.  And  at  this  present  time  there  are  persons 
who  see  spirits  occasionally,  as  always  there  have  been 
such.  Spiritual  sight  is  an  attribute  of  all  persons, 
though  commonly  it  exists  only  as  against  the  world 
to  come.  There  is  the  understanding  of  the  natural 
man  ;  and  there  is  also  a  spiritual  understanding :  and 
a  man  may  have  the  one  actively,  while  of  the  other 


368  THE   SPIRIT   AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

lie  may  never  have  had  the  least  opening.  To  the 
merely  natural  man,  miracles,  and  angels,  and  spirits 
are  necessarily  incredible. 

The  different  look,  which  the  Scriptures  may  have 
to  two  persons  of  the  same  intelligence  is  to  be  ac 
counted  for,  very  often,  by  a  difference  between  them 
as  to  spiritual  condition,  not  moral  nor  religious,  but* 
simply  psychical.  There  are  persons  who  cannot  pos 
sibly  believe  the  Scriptures,  nor  love  them,  and  who 
never  will,  until  they  shall  have  been  baptized  in  the 
sea  of  affliction,  and  so  have  had  their  souls  waked  up. 

"  Oh,  oh  !  but  what  would  that  have  to  do 'with  criti 
cism  ?  "  Much  and  justly.  Because,  for  lexicology  the 
Spirit  has  no  meaning  but  only  words  :  and  science  is 
no  more  a  judge  as  to  miracles  than  it  is  as  to  the 
chronology  of  the  Amorites.  The  appeal  of  the  Scrip 
tures  as  to  credibility,  is  not  to  the  science  of  either 
words  or  matter,  but  to  the  soul  of  man,  learned  with 
all  possible  learning,  and  alive  through  all  its  faculties. 

The  Old  Testament  is  its  own  evidence  as  to  author 
ity,  to  all  persons  competent  to  judge  about  it,  and 
who  also  believe  in  the  unity  of  God,  and  are  well  in 
formed  as  to  ancient  nations,  and  as  to  the  religions  of 
primitive  tribes  and  peoples,  outside  of  Christian  civil 
ization.  For  the  Old  Testament  is  the  history  of  the 
manner  in  which  that  happened  which  is  the  greatest 
miracle,  of  which  it  has  to  tell,  and  by  which  a  whole 
nation,  man,  woman,  and  child,  priest,  rabbi,  and  fish 
erman,  became  intelligent,  persistent,  enthusiastic,  de 
voted  believers  in  that  doctrine  as  to  the  unity  of  God, 
of  which  it  has  been  the  distinction  of  Plato,  that  he 
caught  a  glimpse  of  it,  as  of  some  distant  starry  truth. 


THE   SPIRIT   AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT.  369 

It  has  been  a  common  confident  objection  to  the 
credibility  of  the  Old  Testament,  that  it  recognizes 
necromancy  as  a  real  thing.  And  the  account  of  the 
woman  of  Endor  has  been  reckoned  sufficient  to  vi 
tiate  the  whole  history  of  the  Old  Testament.  But 
that  strange  narrative,  by  every  word  with  which  it  is 
worded,  authenticates  itself  to-day,  for  those  who  are 
willing  to  learn.  From  Spiritualistic  experiences,  at 
the  present  time,  any  one  can  learn,  that  the  Scriptures 
were  written  about  realities,  when  they  mention  Baal 
and  Baalim,  and  the  God  of  Ekron,  and  divination  by 
unclean  spirits.  Nor  am  I  to  be  deterred  from  this 
position,  by  being  asked  whether  I  will  support  the 
Bible  by  reasons  drawn  from  hell.  For  do  not  most 
men  believe  that  even  their  respective  churches  are  so 
supported  ?  Baal  and  his  crew,  however,  are  not  the 
only  spiritual  agencies  in  the  Old  Testament,  which 
are  made  certain  by  Spiritualism ;  but  even  if  they 
were,  they  would  be  enough  for  our  present  purpose, 
with  a  little  thinking.  Hell  and  its  ways  are  exactly 
the  opposite  of  heaven  and  those  ways  which  lead  up 
to  it.  Always  there  is  good  reasoning  from  the  ob 
verse.  And  if  I  am  made  certain  as  to  the  devils, 
who  got  themselves  worshipped  anciently,  then  also  as 
a  thinking  creature,  I  am  assisted  as  to  my  belief  about 
the  prophets  of  the  Lord,  and  about  ministering  angels, 
and  the  angels  that  encamp  about  the  righteous.  And 
so  it  is,  to-day,  that  a  man  can  affirm  of  his  own 
knowledge,  that  the  scriptures  of  the  Old  Testament 
are  true  to  the  facts  and  powers  of  the  spiritual  uni 
verse. 

There  are  persons,  who  profess  to  be  theologians, 
16*  x 


370  THE   SPIRIT   AND  THE   OLD  TESTAMENT. 

who  are  light  and  derisive  as  to  the  Old  Testament, 
and  who  obstinately  and  contemptuously  harden  them 
selves  in  their  blind  leadership  of  people,  by  ignoring 
what  might  be  learned  from  Eastern  travellers,  and 
from  the  long- continued  experiences  of  the  Catholic 
Church.  But  the  theology  which  cannot  eagerly  ap 
propriate  facts,  instead  of  eschewing  them,  is  no  the 
ology  at  all. 

The  Old  Testament  authenticates  itself  for  all  those 
persons,  who  have  a  sense  for  the  perspective  of  his 
tory,  good  for  the  length  of  fourteen  hundred  years,  and 
who  have  also  along  with  that  sense,  some  instinct  as 
to  spirit,  and  its  laws  and  ways. 

On  the  subject  of  anthropomorphism,  both  among 
those  who  have  assailed  and  those  who  have  defended 
the  phraseology  of  the  Old  Testament,  the  ignorance 
often  has  been  indescribably  great.  And  on  neither 
side  do  the  partisans  ever  seem  to  have  suspected  that 
perhaps  the  writers  of  the  Scriptures  may  have  written 
from  an  understanding  into  which  they  themselves 
may  not  have  entered.  That  the  law  "  was  ordained 
by  angels  in  the  hand  of  a  mediator "  is  a  controlling 
fact,  which  it  is  always  necessary  to  remember  as  to 
the  Old  Testament,  and  which  yet  has  never  been 
thought  of  by  some  of  its  censors.  And  so  they  have 
been  like  persons,  undertaking  with  a  foot-rule  and 
compass  to  measure  and  criticise  the  perspective  of 
Eaphael's  great  picture  of  the  Transfiguration.  The 
writers  of  the  Books  of  Samuel  and  of  the  Kings 
were  certainly  readers  of  the  Book  of  Genesis  ;  and 
therefore  whatever  words  or  figures  of  speech  they 
may  have  employed  as  to  what  God  may  have  done  or 


THE   SPIRIT  AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT.  371 

said  or  felt,  are  manifestly  to  be  understood  in  some 
manner  which  may  be  consistent  with  the  sublimity 
and  spirituality  of  the  account,  in  which  creation  is 
said  to  have  begun,  when  "  the  Spirit  of  God  moved 
upon  the  face  of  the  waters." 

But  it  will  be  objected  perhaps,  "  Do  you  then  really 
believe  that  the  Canaanites  were  slaughtered  at  the 
instance  of  the  Lord  ?  And  you  do  believe  that  the 
disobedient  prophet  was  killed  by  a  lion  in  fulfilment 
of  a  Divine  prediction !  And  you  believe  that  the 
Lord  sent  a  pestilence  among  the  people  when  he  was 
displeased  with  them  ! "  Well,  yes ;  I  do  believe  all 
those  things.  But  then  I  think  about  them  with  a 
better  belief  than  some  persons  can  conceive  of.  It  is 
certain  that  the  earth  is  the  Lord's,  and  yet  somehow 
the  Canaanites  were  slaughtered  in  it.  And  it  would 
seem  probable,  that,  like  many  another  man,  a  disobe 
dient  prophet  was  killed  by  a  lion.  And  that  a  plague 
wasted  the  people  of  Israel  two  or  three  times  is  cer 
tain,  just  as  hundreds  of  pestilences  have  wasted  other 
nations,  whether  they  were  sent  or  incurred  or  encoun 
tered.  And  how  can  a  pestilence  possibly  ever  waste 
men,  without  the  Divine  concurrence  being  in  some 
way  implicated  ?  "  Shall  there  be  evil  in  a  city,  and 
the  Lord  hath  not  done  it  ? " 

Was  there  necessarily  a  greater  amount  of  suffering 
in  the  world  than  usual,  in  those  years  when  a  part  of 
it  was  specially  directed  ?  And  if  a  man  died  a  death, 
which  was  foretold  as  well  as  foreknown  by  the  Lord, 
should  it  be  hard  to  be  credited  as  a  fact,  or  be  counted 
for  an  incredible  thing  as  to  the  Lord,  by  us  human 
beings,  who,  at  this  moment,  have,  every  one  of  us, 


372  THE   SPIRIT   AND  THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

"  the  sentence  of  death  in  ourselves,"  either  by  a  lion, 
or  a  railway  car,  or  through  violence  in  some  other 
form,  or  else  by  disease  ?  We  shrink  from  thinking  as 
to  a  few  individuals,  that  certain  things  were  divinely 
done,  which  yet,  a  million  times  over,  we  say,  are  the 
divine  will  as  to  the  human  race.  It  is  the  old  reluc 
tance,  which  can  believe  in  God  easily  and  grandly  as 
the  Lord  of  hosts,  but  not  so  readily  as  being  "  him 
with  whom  we  have  to  do." 

It  was  asked  of  the  Jews,  through  Moses,  "For 
what  nation  is  there  so  great,  who  ha,th  God  so  nigh 
unto  them,  as  the  Lord  our  God  is  in  all  things  that 
we  call  upon  him  for  ? "  And  really  it  is  simply  for 
nighness,  and  not  for  quality  of  action,  that  exactly 
objection  is  made  to  the  credibility  of  Jewish  history, 
as  to  the  Lord.  And  on  the  foregoing  understanding, 
nighness  is  simply  and  fairly  a  matter  of  historical 
inquiry;  and  it  is  not  of  that  utter  improbability, 
which  is  sometimes  lightly  supposed. 

As  to  some  actions,  which  purport  to  have  been 
directed  by  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord,  objection  has  been 
made,  as  not  having  been  as  merciful  as  Christianity,  or 
as  vigorous  as  Almightiness  might  have  made  them,  or 
as  being  even  of  the  nature  of  repentance.  But  the 
action  of  the  Spirit  among  men  is  not  to  be  judged  of 
as  human  actions  are:  because  the  everlasting  Spirit 
is  not  as  the  spirits  of  men  are.  The  spirit  of  a  man, 
to  be  its  best,  must  strive  to  the  uttermost :  but  the 
Spirit  of  the  Lord,  to  be  at  its  best  with  men,  must 
temper  itself  for  them  as  being  weak  and  ignorant,  and 
must  adjust  itself  to  those  human  circumstances  which 
cannot  be  changed,  without  changing  man  himself,  to 


THE   SPIRIT   AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT.  373 

an  extent  which  would  be  almost  like  annihilation. 
Nor  is  the  Spirit  to  be  judged  of  as  to  its  manifesta 
tion  in  time  and  space,  by  what  men  may  think  it 
ought  to  show  itself:  since  the  Spirit  is  unchangea 
ble,  because  of  its  being  actually  of  the  essence  of  all 
possible  changes,  and  of  all  creations  which  ever  have 
been,  or  can  be. 

The  Spirit  of  the  Universe  in  action,  is  necessarily 
manifested  for  men  withinside  of  their  human  condi 
tions  :  and  for  the  Jews,  that  it  might  be  the  better 
humanized  for  human  apprehension,  it  even  gave  "  the 
law  by  the  disposition  of  angels." 

In  the  Old  Testament,  instead  of  the  Lord,  or  the 
Lord  God,  or  the  angel  of  the  Lord  doing  things,  let  it 
be  supposed  that  it  was  written  that  the  Spirit  of 
Nature  favored  one  race  and  extirpated  another,  and 
that  for  violation  of  her  laws  she  suddenly  visited 
men,  with  what  truly  were  simple  effects,  but  which 
apparently  were  like  magical  punishments.  And  let  it 
be  supposed,  besides,  that  jjj-  were  found  to  have  been 
written,  that  the  Spirit  of  Nature  was  recognized  by 
the  Jews  as  blasting  the  fields  at  one  time  and  blessing 
them  at  another,  at  her  will.  Would  that  sound  in 
credibly  to-day  ;  and  is  it  not  indeed  what  is  actually 
going  on  about  us,  always  ? 

Now  the  Lord  God  is  the  soul  of  nature.  He  may 
be  more  than  that  and  infinitely  more.  And  he  may 
be  the  soul  of  various  other  natures,  than  this  one, 
inside  the  circumference  of  which  we  live.  But 
nevertheless,  in  a  sense,  God  is  nature.  And  now 
plainly  does  not  nature  favor  individuals,  one  above 
another ;  and  one  family  more  than  another ;  and  one 


374  THE  SPIRIT   AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

nation  above  other  nations,  as  to  strength,  or  beauty, 
or  intellect,  or  wealth,  or  even  sometimes  as  to  all  of 
them  combined  ?  The  word  "  luck "  is  derived  from 
the  name  of  a  heathen  deity ;  and  is  it  not  still  felt, 
as  though  by  nature  some  persons  were  more  lucky 
than  others  ? 

For  a  special  purpose,  the  Lord,  as  regards  a  particu 
lar  people,  acted  avowedly  through  the  forces  of  na 
ture,  but  yet  not  more  certainly  than  he  is  always  act 
ing.  Spirit  is  the  God  of  nature ;  and  also  it  is 
animal  life  with  man.  Also  the  Spirit  is  God  Most 
High,  and  in  the  souls  of  good  believing  men  it  is  the 
Holy  Ghost.  And  as  to  whatever  spiritual  plane  men 
may  choose  to  live  upon,  or  may  be  raised  to,  the  words 
of  Christ  are  true,  "  With  the  same  measure  that  ye 
mete  withal,  it  shall  be  measured  to  you  again."  It 
was  from  the  Spirit,  with  which  his  soul  was  quick, 
and  from  his  being  like  the  mouthpiece  of  Divine 
Necessity,  that  Hosea  at  one  time  said  of  the  Jews, 
"  For  they  have  sown  the  wind,  and  they  shall  reap  the 
whirlwind." 

God  as  he  is  known  to  the  seraphs,  and  is  expe 
rienced  on  the  seraphic  plane,  is  not  God  as  possibly 
he  could  be  felt  on  the  human  plane,  intelligibly  and 
according  to  human  wants,  any  more  than  a  pious 
book  by  William  Law  could  answer  religiously  such 
wants  as  a  Kaffir  may  have.  And  God,  as  he  is 
thought  of,  on  steps  far  lower  down,  before  his  throne, 
than  where  seraphs  and  cherubs  have  their  regions,  is 
not  God  as  he  would  be  intelligible  to  persons  living 
on  this  earth,  and  limited  as  to  their  capacities  of 
thought,  by  the  narrowness  of  their  experiences,  and 


THE   SPIRIT   AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT.  375 

by  prejudices  and  feelings  connected  with  their  cra 
dles,  and  which  they  can  never  get  clear  of,  but  along 
with  their  bodies.  God  can  possibly  have  to  do  with 
us,  only  as  being  ignorant.  For  if  he  should  approach 
us,  as  seraphs,  we  should  never  know  of  him,  because  • 
of  our  senses  and  susceptibility  being  inferior  to  the 
seraphic.  "  Every  good  gift  and  every  perfect  gift  is 
from  above,  and  cometh  down  from  the  Father  of 
lights."  Yet  it  reaches  this  earth  through  agencies, 
and  perhaps  even  through  angelic  intermediations. 
And  certainly  as  it  enters  into  this  world,  it  is  through 
some  particular  channel ;  it  is  through  the  mind  of 
a  poet,  or  the  apprehension  of  a  philosopher,  or  dur 
ing  the  meditative  mood  of  some  religious  genius  ; 
and  it  is,  therefore,  through  a  certain  few  persons,  who, 
whether  they  know  it  or  not,  are  in  their  time  and 
place,  more  or  less  successfully,  and  more  or  less  faith 
fully,  like  ministering  Levites,  standing  before  the 
Lord.  And  it  was  through  a  similar  ministration  of 
the  Spirit,  that  the  Old  Testament  was  made  the  long 
preparatory  introduction  to  the  New.  Also,  of  the 
Gospel,  the  first  believers  and  preachers  as  being  He 
brews,  were  men  of  hereditary  fitness,  as  being  mem 
bers  of  a  family,  whose  minds  had  been  shaped  as  to 
apprehension,  expectation,  and  belief,  by  the  manner 
in  which  their  forefathers  had  been  divinely  dealt 
with,  during  more  than  a  thousand  years.  And  it 
was  from  this  point  of  view,  that  St.  Paul  wrote  to 
the  Galatians,  "  Wherefore  the  law  was  our  school 
master  to  bring  us  unto  Christ." 

And  now  let  another  point  be  considered,  connected 
with  the  miraculous.     The  natural  eye,  it  may  be,  with 


376  THE   SPIRIT   AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

infinitely  various  splendors  before  it,  can  see  only  what, 
by  its  nature,  it  is  ready  to  perceive  :  and  so  it  is  with 
the  spiritual  eye.  The  natural  eye  is  fixed  as  to  its 
constituents,  and  therefore  as  to  its  capability  of  being 
strengthened,  and  its  ability  of  perceiving.  But  the 
spiritual  eye  is  not  so  fixed,  because  of  its  being  an 
organ  not  only  for  ever- widening  fields,  but  also  for 
states,  which  may  become  more  and  more  interior,  to 
all  eternity.  The  eye  of  the  spirit,  therefore,  when  it 
is  open,  -is  probably  the  eye  of  that  state,  in  which  the 
spirit  is,  for  a  time,  by  information  and  faith. 

It  is  one  of  the  primary  and  deepest  truths,  as  to 
human  nature,  "  Draw  nigh  to  God,  and  he  will  draw 
nigh  to  you."  But  a  man  can  see  only  what  he  is 
ready  to  see.  And  a  Divine  communication  pressing 
into  the  mind  of  a  prophet,  has  shape  and  coloring, 
from  the  imagery  and  religious  expectations,  with 
which  the  receiving  mind  may  be  furnished.  And  so 
it  was,  that  the  Father  Everlasting,  without  beginning 
or  end  of  days,  seemed  to  Daniel,  in  his  vision,  as 
though  "  the  Ancient  of  days  did  sit,  whose  garment 
was  white  as  snow,  and  the  hair  of  his  head  like  the 
pure  wool."  Also,  in  the  first  vision  of  the  prophet 
Ezekiel,  there  was  a  manifestation  of  the  Spirit, 
through  which  "  when  the  living  creatures  went,  the 
wheels  went  with  them  :  and  when  the  living  creatures 
were  lifted  up  from  the  earth,  the  wheels  were  lifted 
up.  Whithersoever  the  spirit  was  to  go,  they  went." 
And  of  this  imagery,  it  may  be,  that  the  original,  as 
Ezekiel  saw  it,  or  what  is  some  copy  of  it,  is  to  be 
seen  to-day,  among  the  sculptures,  Assyrian  perhaps, 
which  are  preserved  in  the  British  Museum. 


THE  SPIRIT  AND  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.     377 

World  beyond  world,  and  state  within  state,  —  this  is 
the  condition  by  which  we  live.  Are  there  varieties  of 
report  amongst  us  resulting  thence  spiritually  ?  Certain 
ly  there  are,  and  there  must  be ;  just  as  in  England,  a 
coal-heaver,  a  mason,  a  brass-founder,  a  glass-polisher 
and  an  astronomer-royal,  would  vary  infinitely  about 
what  the  heavens  may  be,  or  may  have  to  show,  though 
even  they  may  all  of  them  actually  have  worked  to 
gether,  for  the  construction  of  the  same  observatory. 

And  if  a  star  can  shine  differently  into  different 
minds,  because  of  their  being  informed,  some  more  than 
others  and  some  less ;  so  may  some  primal  truth  of  the 
spiritual  world,  shining  on  the  minds  of  men,  be  ap 
prehended  by  one  person  in  one  way,  and  by  another 
person  in  another  way.  And  thus  it  is  that  for  saints 
in  the  same  spiritual  sphere  with  St.  John,  "  God  is 
love " ;  while  yet  for  men,  in  a  lower  sphere,  wanton 
against  grace,  brutish,  and  rebellious,  "  Our  God  is  a 
consuming  fire."  And  that  indeed  he  must  be,  or  else 
be  nothing.  And  perhaps  revelation  and  the  probabili 
ties  of  human  expectation  as  to  the  next  world,  will 
all  be  fulfilled  in  spirits  having  the  scene  about  them 
change  with  their  love  of  God. 

Much  difficulty  has  been  felt  about  the  Old  Testa 
ment,  as  though  it  were  inconsistent  with  the  impar 
tiality  of  God  ;  and  as  though  it  were  a  thing  incredi 
ble,  that  God  should  have  had  "a  chosen  people." 
But  now  in  what  manner,  and  for  what  end  were  they 
chosen  ?  "Was  it  favoritism  ?  But  really  that  could 
not  be  argued  from  their  history,  from  the  pestilences 
and  the  famine  which  they  endured,  and  from  the 
manner  in  which  their  sins  were  visited  upon  them, 


378  THE   SPIRIT   AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

and  from  their  captivity  in  Babylon,  and  their  disper 
sion  by  the  Eomans.  And  certainly  with  the  proph 
ets,  age  after  age,  "  the  word  of  the  Lord,"  as  it  came, 
was  commonly  reproach,  indignation,  and  warning.  A 
chosen  people  they  were ;  but  they  were  chosen  for  the 
good  of  others,  just  as  much  as  for  their  own.  The 
promise,  as  it  was  made  to  Abraham,  at  his  call,  was 
"  And  in  thee  shall  all  families  of  the  earth  be  blessed." 
But  why  through  the  Jews  was  this  blessing  to  accrue, 
rather  than  through  any  other  people  ?  Simply  per 
haps  because,  as  it  had  got  to  be  given  through  some 
nation,  they  were  as  good  for  the  purpose  as  any  other. 
Or,  it  may  be,  that  without  being  morally  either  better 
or  worse  than  other  nations,  there  was  in  them  some 
constitutional  peculiarity,  through  which  they  were 
eligible  for  a  particular  purpose.  But  the  use  to  which 
God  puts  a  man  is  no  pleasure  for  him,  unless  first  his 
heart  be  right  with  God.  And  if  a  man  be  a  born 
poet,  it  is  only  with  his  singing  aloud  and  well  and  re 
joicing  others,  that  he  can  truly  know  and  feel  himself. 
In  what  way,  then,  have  all  the  families  of  the  earth 
been  blessed  through  Abraham  ?  They  have  not  all 
yet  been  blessed,  but  are  many  of  them  only  about 
to  be.  But  Christ  was  the  blessing  predestined.  And 
the  Jewish  mind,  as  it  was  schooled  by  experience, 
and  solemnized  by  the  Lord,  and  taught  of  God,  was 
in  the  fulness  of  time,  like  flesh  for  "  the  Word,"  when 
it  was  to  dwell  among  us. 

The  experiences  of  the  Jewish  people,  as  they  are 
written  in  the  Old  Testament,  regarded  as  mental,  do 
mestic,  political,  and  spiritual  preparation,  are  what  is 
meant  in  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  where  Jesus  is  de- 


THE   SPIRIT   AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT.  379 

scribed  as  contemplating  an  entrance  into  this  world, 
in  concurrence  with  prophecy,  to  do  the  will  of  heaven  ; 
and  when  he  says,  as  before  God,  and  looking  down 
upon  the  earth,  "  A  body  hast  thou  prepared  for  me." 
And  thus  it  was  actually  towards  us  Christians  of  to 
day  that  God  condescended,  when  he  called  Abraham. 
And  it  was  for  us  that  the  prophets  prophesied.  And 
when  the  psalmists  sang,  they  really  sang  for  us  of 
this  age,  and  more  effectively  perhaps  than  even  for 
their  own  immediate  friends.  In  the  Babylonish  cap 
tivity,  it  was  what  might  have  been  our  faithlessness, 
individually,  which  was  chastened ;  and  it  may  be,  that 
through  the  punishment  of  the  Jews,  and  their  "  stripes 
we  are  healed." 

The  marvellousness  of  Jewish  history  is  the  glorifi 
cation  of  my  nature.  And  whatever  the  graciousness 
of  God  may  have  been  towards  Saul,  it  may  yet  avail 
me  to-day  in  the  flesh,  as  a  mere  history,  more  than  it 
ever  did  him.  And  that  wisdom,  of  which  Solomon 
was  the  channel,  but  which  he  failed  to  appropriate  for 
his  own  good,  has  been  of  some  profit  for  me,  through 
perhaps  ten  thousand  unknown  channels. 

As  to  every  true  poet  that  ever  sung,  as  to  every 
person  of  spiritual  insight  that  ever  spoke,  as  to  every 
man  that  ever  God  raised  up,  for  an  emergency  in  hu 
man  affairs,  and  also  as  to  those  nations,  who  may  have 
been  receptive  of  it  in  any  way,  whether  in  Greece, 
Italy,  or  Palestine,  the  Spirit  has  been  manifested  "  for 
every  man  to  profit  withal."  And  it  is  the  explanation 
and  the  justification  of  Jewish  history,  as  to  the  pecu 
liar  people,  and  the  covenants  and  the  fathers  and  the 
promises,  and  the  glory,  that  out  of  it  all  "  as  concern 
ing  the  flesh,  Christ  came,  who  is  over  all." 


380  THE   SPIRIT   AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT. 

It  would  seem  as  though  there  were  descent  by  spirit 
as  well  as  by  blood ;  and  it  would  appear  also  as  though 
there  were  a  descent  by  spirit,  in  connection  with  blood. 
And  it  would  seem  too,  with  living  together  earnestly, 
that  people  strengthen  and  perpetuate  ways  of  think 
ing,  and  even  generate  a  spirit  which,  for  intensity  and 
thoroughness,  is  like  infection  for  those  who  come  with 
in  its  reach.  And  by  the  manner  in  which  the  Jews 
were  secluded  from  other  nations,  and  through  their 
sympathy  with  one  another  as  fellow- worshippers,  man 
ifestly  there  was  induced  an  intensity  of  belief  as  to 
the  unity  of  God,  which  has  been  like  leaven  for  leav 
ening  the  whole  world.  And,  but  for  the  Old  Testa 
ment,  there  never  could  have  been  the  New,  nor  ever 
could  the  Son  of  God  have  been  manifested,  nor  possi 
bly  could  the  Holy  Spirit  have  had  its  right  action 
on  believers. 

And  now,  not  unreasonably,  it  may  seem,  as  though 
a  man  of  the  highest  science,  and  of  the  truest  intui 
tions,  and  of  the  widest  information  as  to  history,  might 
say,  "  When  I  pray,  I  pray  out  of  my  heart,  trusting 
that  the  Spirit  of  God's  sending  will  inform  my  prayer 
and  quicken  me.  And  at  times,  also,  I  am  glad  to 
think,  as  I  kneel  before  my  Father  in  heaven,  that  I 
am  looking  in  the  direction  of  the  God  of  Abraham, 
the  God  of  Isaac,  and  the  God  of  Jacob." 

Glory  to  the  Lord  my  God,  who  knows  me  better 
than  I  know  myself,  and  who,  whatever  else  he  may 
be,  is  surely  better  than  my  goodness  ! 

Glory  to  God,  who  "  created  the  heavens  and  the 
earth,"  and  because  of  whose  outflowing  Spirit  things 
seen  and  temporal  are  but  like  the  dark  shadows  of 
things  unseen  and  eternal! 


THE   SPIRIT   AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT.  381 

• 

Glory  to  God,  whose  word  as  it  goes  forth  lights 
high  heaven  with  splendor,  and  kindles  every  seraph, 
and  enlightens  every  angel,  and  is  an  impulse  among 
men,  which  utters  itself  more  or  less  effectively  in  the 
languages  of  many  lands  ! 

Glory  to  God  in  the  highest,  as  that  archetypal  mind, 
whence  the  elements  derive  their  properties,  and  whence 
also  are  evolved  the  ages  as  they  come  and  pass  ; 
wherein,  too,  the  first  man  existed  as  a  thought,  before 
he  walked  this  earth  in  'form  ;  and  without  which,  no 
kingdom  can  rise  to  its  destiny,  nor  even  a  sparrow  fall 
to  the  ground ! 

Glory  be  to  God,  for  he  makes  spirits  be  his  angels, 
and  flaming  fire  do  him  service  ! 

Glory  to  God  !  "  who  at  sundry  times  and  in  divers 
manners  spake  in  times  past  unto  the  fathers  by  the 
prophets." 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  AND  THE  NEW. 

THE  New  Testament  is  no  detached  piece  of  his 
tory  ;  and  the  documents  of  which  it  is  com 
posed  have  other  connections  than  simply  with  one 
another.  Its  title  as  the  New  presupposes  the  Old 
Testament :  a'nd  throughout,  it  is  alive  with  the  spirit 
and  phraseology  of  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah  and  David 
and  Elijah  and  Moses.  And  just  as  a  government  may 
for  continuity  and  spirit  be  the  same  government, 
throughout  many  generations  of  ministers  and  subjects 
connected  with  it,  so  was  the  era  of  the  New  Testa 
ment  a  continuation  of  the  line  of  ages,  which  dates 
from  Abraham. 

At  the  birth  of  Jesus  there  was  present  a  con 
tinuity  of  custom,  thought,  and  hope,  which  began,  as 
all  the  Jews  of  the  age  gloried  in  believing,  "  with  the 
faith  of  Abraham,  who  is  the  father  of  us  all."  At 
that  time,  for  everybody,  everywhere,  with  the  excep 
tion  of  a  Roman  garrison,  for  everything  it  was  the 
law  of  Moses.  The  smoke  of  the  morning  and  of  the 
evening  sacrifice  went  up  from  Mount  Moriah,  over 
Jerusalem,  just  as  it  had  been  commanded  in  the 
desert.  The  foundations  of  the  temple  were  what 
Solomon  had  laid.  And  as  the  priests  chanted  their 
psalms,  often  it  was  in  the  words  of  David  and  of 
a  thousand  years  before.  The  prophets  indeed  were 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  AND  THE  NEW.      383 

dead,  but  in  every  synagogue,  on  every  Sabbath,  still 
they  were  to  be  heard,  speaking  from  their  books. 
And  outside  of  Judea,  in  Eome  probably,  and  in  Cor 
inth,  and  in  many  other  places,  there  was  a  state  of 
things,  like  what  was  pleaded  as  a  fact,  in  a  conference 
of  the  earliest  Christ1'  ns  about  the  Gentiles,  and 
which  is  thus  written  of  in  the  Book  of  Acts  :  "  Moses 
of  old  time  hath  in  every  city  them  that  preach  him, 
being  read  in  the  synagogues  every  Sabbath  day." 
And  throughout  Palestine,  all  the  localities,  loudly  as 
they  speak  to-day,  yet  spoke  still  more  impressively, 
eighteen  hundred  years  ago,  of  Samson,  Samuel,  Saul, 
David,  Solomon,  Elijah,  and  Elisha.  And  at  that  time, 
no  doubt,  there  were  places,  which  seemed,  as  though 
still  glowing  with  the  presence  of  Isaiah,  or  mourning 
along  with  the  spirit  of  Jeremiah,  and  as  though  still 
fresh  from  the  footsteps  of  Hosea  and  Amos,  or  as 
though  made  holy  by  the  life  of  Malachi,  the  last  of 
the  prophets.  Nor,  as  it  would  seem,  had  the  voice  of 
prophecy  then  been  quite  suspended,  because  with  his 
annual  entry  into  the  holy  of  holies,  in  the  temple,  it 
was  believed  that  the  high  priest  for  the  year  became 
prophetic  for  some  particular  purpose.  And  indeed, 
at  that  period,  all  the  land  of  Judea  was  alive  with 
traditions  of  what  the  angel  of  the  Lord  had  been ; 
and, of  what  judgments  had  been  incurred,  and  what 
hopes  had  been  imparted  from  the  Lord  ;  and  of  what 
miracles  had  been  wrought,  at  one  place  and  another, 
and  what  visions,  also,  and  dreams  had  been  vouch 
safed  to  one  man  and  another.  By  its  nature,  time 
past  in  Judea,  for  effect  had  become  prophetic  of  a 
future  wonderful  and  miraculous. 


384  THE   OLD   TESTAMENT   AND   THE  NEW. 

The  Old  Testament  was  like  the  soul  of  the  Jewish 
people.  It  was  what  they  thought  from,  what  they 
prayed  by,  and  what  they  trusted  to.  The  God  of  Abra 
ham  and  of  Isaac  and  of  Jacob  was  the  God  they  looked 
to,  and  towards  whom  their  souls  were  open.  Histori 
cally,  they  were  the  Lord's  people,  but  not  therefore 
spiritually,  all  of  them,  and  altogether ;  for  it  was  then, 
as  it  is  to-day,  when  Christians  pray  for  that  coming, 
which  would  destroy  many  of  them  with  its  bright 
ness.  And  so  it  was  that,  at  the  commencement  of 
our  era,  every  mountain  and  valley  and  city  from 
Beersheba  to  Lebanon,  every  fisherman  on  the  lake 
of  Galilee,  and  at  Jerusalem  every  member  of  the 
Sanhedrim,  and  every  man  in  the  market-place, 
Scribes  and  Pharisees  all,  and  every  worshipper  also, 
that  went  up  into  the  temple  to  pray,  was  alive 
with  the  spirit  of  the  past,  and  with  hopes  accruing 
from  it. 

From  the  termination  of  the  Old  Testament  to  the 
commencement  of  the  New,  there  was  a  space  of  four 
hundred  years,  which,  however,  was  not  without  its 
documents,  which  are  to  be  found  in  the  Apocrypha. 
During  this  interval,  the  Jews  had  become  more  and 
more  a  peculiar  people,  so  as  indeed  to  have  hold  of  a 
right  .belief,  many  of  them,  in  a  most  unrighteous 
spirit.  And  indeed  they  had  become,  and  they  were 
what  they  were,  a  mere  earthen  vessel,  wherein  was 
held  aloft  and  before  the  whole  world,  the  golden, 
heavenly,  eternal  truth  of  the  unity  of  God. 

The  day,  which  Jesus  Christ  said  that  Abraham  had 
rejoiced  at  foreseeing,  was  coming.  And  for  many  and 
perhaps  a  thousand  converging  reasons  before  the 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  AND  THE  NEW.      385 

throne  of  God,  "now  the  fulness  of  the  time  was 
come."  These  are  the  first  verses  of  the  Gospel  ac 
cording  to  St.  Mark.  "  The  beginning  of  the  Gospel 
of  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God :  as  it  is  written  in 
the  prophets,  Behold,  I  send  my  messenger  before  thy 
face,  which  shall  prepare  my  way  before  thee.  The 
voice  of  one  crying  in  the  wilderness,  Prepare  ye  the 
way  of  the  Lord,  make  his  paths  straight.  John  did 
baptize  in  the  wilderness  and  preach  the  baptism  of 
repentance  for  the  remission  of  sins.  And  there  went 
out  unto  him  all  the  land  of  Judea,  and  they  of  Jeru 
salem,  and  were  all  baptized  of  him  in  the  river  of 
Jordan,  confessing  their  sins.  And  John  was  clothed 
with  camel's  hair,  and  with  a  girdle  of  skin  about  his 
loins;  and  he  did  eat  locusts  and  wild  honey;  and 
preached,  saying  — 

And  here  now  on  the  instant  starts  up  our  modern 
scepticism  and  exclaims,  "  Written  in  the  prophets,  the 
old  prophets  !  That  is  a  very  good  beginning  certain 
ly  !  But  preaching  in  the  wilderness  !  A  popular 
preacher  keeping  to  the  wilderness,  —  that  is  too  ridic 
ulous.  And  who  was  John  ?  who  was  his  father  ?  0, 
Zacharias,  indeed  !  But  who  then  was  the  Scribe  that 
registered  his  birth  ?  For,  it  is  pretended,  that  the 
Jews  had  registers  of  births  among  them.  Preaching 
the  baptism  of  repentance  !  What  an  audacious  under 
taking  !  Why  was  he  to  preach  in  that  way,  rather 
than  anybody  else  ?  And  then  for  his  food,  locusts 
and  wild  honey !  Did  anybody  ever  hear  of  such  a 
diet  ?  But,  no  doubt,  he  was  secretly  supplied  from 
the  city  with  something  better  than  that;  was  not 
he  ?"  And  to  this,  answer  is  proper  thus  :  "No,  he  was 
17  y 


386  THE   OLD   TESTAMENT   AND   THE  NEW. 

not,  probably.  Go  away,  poor  child  of  self-conceit 
and  misfortune,  go  away.  What  have  you  to  do  with 
the  time  and  scene  and  spirit,  which  we  are  trying  to 
realize  ?  Get  away  into  the  fields,  and  find,  if  you 
can,  the  prodigal  son ;  and,  far  away  from  the  flippan 
cies  and  fashions  of  the  day,  think  with  yourself  till 
you  come  to  yourself,  and  feel  yourself  to  be  a  living 
soul  with  the  feelings,  responsibilities,  and  connections 
of  a  soul  immortal."  Reason  in  its  majesty  ought  to 
be  welcome  everywhere ;  and  it  has  a  place,  indeed, 
immediately  under  the  throne  of  the  Most  High.  But 
what  has  mere  pertness  to  do  at  the  gate  of  the  holy 
of  holies  ?  It  can  really  do  nothing  there,  except 
incur  penal  blindness ;  as  the  Syrians  did  at  Dothan, 
when  they  reached  out  their  hands  for  the  life  of  the 
prophet  Elisha. 

At  the  birth  of  Jesus  Christ,  it  was,  as  St.  Paul  wrote 
to  the  Galatians,  because  "  the  fulness  of  the  time  was 
come."  And  not  improbably,  it  was,  for  the  whole 
world,  a  more  complete  fulness  of  time  than  what 
Paul  of  himself  could  ever  have  thought.  Because,  as 
to  the  providential  agencies  concerned  with  a  great 
crisis  in  human  affairs,  the  chief  actors  in  it  may  per 
sonally  know  no  more  than  many  other  people  of  the 
time.  For,  persons  may  meet  together  for  a  settlement 
of  their  differences,  by  argument,  fight,  or  otherwise,  and 
yet  be  merely  the  representatives  of  forces,  external  to 
themselves,  and  of  the  potency  of  which  they  may  be 
quite  unaware.  A  great  crisis  like  "  the  fulness  of  the 
time  "  is  to  be  known  of  by  men  thoroughly,  only  from 
some  watch-tower  commanding  the  stream  of  time. 
And  so  it  is  possible,  that  Paul  as  to  the  fulness  of 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  AND  THE  NEW.      387 

time,  wrote  by  the  Spirit,  more  truly  than  he  himself 
knew  of. 

Four  hundred  years  previously,  Plato  had  written, 
that  in  his  view,  there  was  no  hope  of  deliverance 
for  man,  from  the  vile  slough  into  which  they  had 
fallen,  but  through  the  intervention  of  that  Power,  by 
which  they  had  been  created.  And  as  appears  also, 
from  classical  authors,  there  was,  about  the  commence 
ment  of  our  era,  in  the  Roman  Empire,  a  strange,  wan 
dering,  prophetic  sense  abroad,  that  there  was  a  crisis 
rising  as  to  human  affairs.  In  describing  the  capture  of 
Jerusalem  by  Titus,  it  is  said  by  Tacitus  in  his  heathen 
way,  "  Omens  had  happened,  for  averting  which,  there 
is  no  rite  practised  by  a  people,  who  are  opposed  to  all 
religion,  though  actually  very  superstitious.  Troops 
were  seen  to  meet  in  the  sky,  and  arms  to  glisten,  and 
the  temple  was  suddenly  illuminated  by  light  from 
the  clouds.  The  doors  of  the  inner  temple  were  sud 
denly  thrown  open,  and  a  voice  more  than  human  was 
heard  saying  that  the  gods  were  going.  These  things 
frightened  some  people.  But  most  persons  were  there 
by  more  fully  persuaded,  that  what  was  contained  in 
the  ancient  writings  of  the  priests  was  coming  true, 
that  the  East  was  about  to  be  magnified,  and  people 
from  Judea  about  to  rise  to  power."  And  Suetonius 
writes  to  the  same  effect  and  says,  "  A  certain  ancient 
and  persistent  notion  had  overspread  the  East,  that  by 
Fate,  people  from  Judea  would  become  supreme."  And 
in  the  same  way,  Josephus  wrote,  after  the  fall  of  Je 
rusalem,  that  what  had  emboldened  the  Jews,  to  resist 
the  Romans,  was  an  uncertain  oracle  contained  in  their 
sacred  books,  that  some  of  them,  about  that  time,  would 


388      THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  AND  THE  NEW. 

rule  the  world.  Very  singular  indeed  was  that  expect 
ant  state  of  the  public  mind,  which  there  was,  among 
both  the  Jews  and  the  heathen,  during  that 'century, 
in  which  Jesus  Christ  was  born.  No  doubt,  the  world 
had  grown  ripe  for  a  great  change,  and  was  also  con 
scious  of  that  ripeness,  through  the  best  intellects  of 
the  age. 

Greece  had  yielded  its  best  as  to  intellectual  prepa 
ration,  for  the  world.  And  Eome  had  subordinated  all 
nations  to  itself,  from  Britain  to  the  borders  of  Persia, 
and  by  permeation,  had  made  them  like  one  people, 
and  had  tied  them  together  with  roads,  opening  in 
every  direction,  from  the  Forum.  The  Gentiles  had 
been  working  for  an  end  beyond  their  thought,  and 
had  unconsciously  been  fulfilling  ancient  prophecy,  and 
preparing  the  world  for  the  new  doctrine  that  should 
proclaim  the  brotherhood  of  man.  Eome  had  uncon 
sciously  been  making  ready  with  its  work,  and  Judea, 
without  knowing  it,  had  been  producing  the  man, 
against  "the  fulness  of  the  time,"  and  the  fulfilment  of 
the  prophecy  of  Isaiah  :  "  The  voice  of  him  that  crieth 
in  the  wilderness,  Prepare  ye  the  way  of  the  Lord, 
make  straight  in  the  desert  a  highway  for  our  God. 
Every  valley  shall  be  exalted,  and  every  mountain  and 
hill  shall  be  made  low :  and  the  crooked  shall  be  made 
straight,  and  the  rough  places  plain ;  and  the  glory  of 
the  Lord  shall  be  revealed,  and  all  flesh  shall  see  it 
together  :  for  the  mouth  of  the  Lord  hath  spoken  it." 

Probably  it  was  as  the  earth  answers  to  heaven,  elec 
trically  ;  but  any  way,  so  it  was,  that  the  world,  at  its 
best,  was  as  though  expectant,  about  the  time  when 
Christ  was  manifested,  This  state  of  expectation  may 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  AND  THE  NEW.      389 

perhaps  have  been  from  what  Plato  had  said,  or  it  may 
have  merely  been  occasioned  by  some  Sibylline  proph 
ecy,  such  as  every  now  and  then  got  wandering  about 
the  world  and  exciting  men's  minds  ;  or  it  may  have 
been  caused  simply  by  the  shadow  of  a  great  event, 
forthcoming  from  the  gates  of  destiny.  There  is  an 
eclogue  of  Virgil,  which  has  always  had  a  fascination 
for  some  minds,  as  seeming  like  what  might  have  been 
written  from  inspiration  at  Jerusalem.  And  certainly 
it  is  a  strange,  singular  poem ;  for  it  is  in  the  spirit  of 
Isaiah,  rather  than  like  the  Muse  of  Theocritus.  And 
it  is  as  though  in  some  high  mood,  while  Virgil  was 
thinking  to  express  his  best  wishes  for  the  newly  born 
child  of  a  friend,  he  had  actually  been  caught  by  the 
spirit  of  prophecy,  and  been  lifted  up  like  Ezekiel,  and 
been  made  to  shape  his  words,  as  though  for  a  Messiah 
just  born.  And  if  any  one  should  think  that  so  this 
may  have  been,  he  might  maintain  his  belief  by  many 
analogies  and  instances.  For,  through  being  possessed 
and  overmastered  by  a  mighty  spirit,  often  a  man  has 
said  grandly  what  he  never  thought,  and  been  even 
like  Balaam,  who  blessed  sublimely,  while  wishing 
only  to  curse.  But,  however  that  may  have  been,  there 
was,  at  the  time  of  the  birth  of  Jesus  Christ,  a  pro 
phetic  sense  abroad  of  something  great  about  to  hap 
pen,  and  not  in  Judea  only.  And  so  it  was,  "now 
when  Jesus  was  born  in  Bethlehem  of  Judea  in  the 
days  of  Herod  the  king"  that  the  words  of  Haggai 
came  true,  which  had  been  tittered  five  hundred  years 
before,  not  out  of  his  own  mind,  but  by  the  spirit  of 
prophecy,  "  And  I  will  shake  all  nations,  and  the  de 
sire  of  all  nations  shall  come  :  and  I  will  fill  this  house 
with  glory,  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts." 


390      THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  AND  THE  NEW. 

And  here  abruptly  our  modern  captiousness  calls  out, 
11  Somewhat  indefinite  that,  is  it  not  ?  If  there  was  to 
be  a  prophecy,  why  was  it  not  accompanied  by  the 
names  of  persons  and  places,  and  by  exact  dates,  and 
by  the  names  of  the  kings,  or  emperors,  that  were  to 
be  ? "  To  which  the  answer  is,  But  now  the  end  of 
that  course  of  thought  is,  that  you  can  have  nothing 
to  do  with  God  Almighty,  unless  he  wTill  show  himself 
in  a  court  constituted  after  human  methods,  and  be 
examined  and  cross-examined  as  to  his  right  to  own 
human  creatures  and  to  deal  with  them.  Woe  unto 
him  that  striveth  with  his  Maker  !  Potsherd  of  earth, 
is  that  the  temper,  in  which  you  can  even  treat  with 
your  fellow-potsherds  ?  Or  is  that  the  spirit,  in  which 
men  of  the  least  success  have  ever  contemplated  the 
earth,  geologically  ?  Also,  what,  necessarily  has  Spirit, 
foretelling  its  course,  to  do  with  names  ;  for,  what  has 
the  mere  name  of  a  man  to  do  with  the  spirit  of  an  age  ? 

This  matter  of  prophecy  is  not  for  a  man,  whose 
mind  has  been  narrowed  to  the  mere  methods  of  sci 
ence,  nor  yet  for  a  bigot  of  the  Talmud,  nor  yet  for  a 
bigot  of  any  Christian  kind,  because  really  it  is  the 
affair  of  human  nature  at  its  highest  and  truest.  And 
indeed  it  is  a  subject  for  men,  not  of  mathematics 
merely,  but  of  poetry  and  intuition,  and  of  wide  learn 
ing  as  well  as  modern  sharpness  ;  and  who  also  have 
had  personal  experience  of  the  Spirit,  as  dealing  with 
them,  for  sin,  and  redemption  and  hope.  And  for  such 
men,  the  Old  Testament  is  one  long  grand  prophecy  as 
to  the  "  desire  of  all  nations,"  and  the  manner  of  his 
coming. 

The  people  of  Israel  were  a  chosen  people  ;  were 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  AND  THE  NEW.      391 

they  ?  They  were ;  but  yet  not  to  the  exclusion  or 
detriment  of  other  nations ;  because,  through  the 
choice  of  them,  divinely,  all  other  nations  were  to  be 
blessed,  and  to  know  the  Lord,  and  have  a  Messiah, 
and  receive  the  Spirit. 

The  beginning  of  Christianity  was  not  at  Bethlehem, 
nor  yet  at  Nazareth  ;  and  it  was  indeed,  very  long  be 
fore  Csesar  Augustus  became  emperor :  for  it  was  when 
there  was  "  preached  before  the  gospel  unto  Abraham, 
saying,  In  thee  shall  all  nations  be  blessed."  And  if 
it  were  as  Paul  writes,  that  it  pleased  God  "  to  reveal 
his  Son  in  me,  that  I  might  preach  him  among  the 
heathen,"  it  was  because,  first,  as  he  says,  God  "  sep 
arated  me  from  my  mother's  womb,  and  called  me  by 
his  grace."  And  before  the  words,  God,  Father,  faith, 
and  Spirit  could  have  their  right  meanings,  as  spoken 
by  the  apostles,  it  was  necessary  that  they  should  have 
been  used  in  joy  and  sorrow,  and  hope  and  fear,  by  one 
generation  after  another,  and  by  Moses  as  a  lawgiver, 
and  by  David  as  a  Psalmist,  and  by  the  prophets,  one 
after  another,  in  their  various  messages  of  love,  or  an 
ger,  or  direction,  or  encouragement. 

There  is  not  an  age  of  the  ancient  Church,  but  lives 
to-day,  by  its  influence,  in  every  member  of  the  Church 
of  God.  If  faith  avails  me  to-day,  for  righteousness 
or  a  hereafter,  it  is  because  I  am  "  blessed  with  faithful 
Abraham."  The  heathen  are  the  majority  in  the  world, 
as  yet,  and  according  to  them,  "  there  be  gods  many, 
and  lords  many."  And  "  the  fool  hath  said  in  his  heart, 
There  is  no  God."  And  that  everything  is  God,  is  what 
a  student  is  liable  to  think,  if  he  forgets  himself,  as  a 
finite  limited  creature,  with  whom  sometimes  inquiry 


392      THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  AND  THE  NEW. 

must  grow  microscopic  as  it  grows  intense,  and  there 
fore  must  report  less  and  less  of  the  infinite  and  eternal. 
And  if  my  soul  has  in  it  provision  against  its  times  of 
trial  and  agony,  it  is  because  of  something  in  me,  which 
is  like  an  instinct ;  it  is  because  of  spirit  by  descent ;  it 
is  because  of  an  inherited  feeling,  from  ages  long  be 
fore  the  commencement  of  our  era,  as  to  the  God  of 
heaven  and  earth  being  the  God  of  persons,  the  God 
of  Abraham,  and  of  Isaac,  and  of  Jacob  ;  and  it  is  be 
cause  of  great  souls,  that  were  before  Christ ;  because 
of  the  manner  in  which  David  agonized,  and  had  his 
spirit  drawn,  that  myself  I  can  exclaim  and  plead,  "  0 
God,  thou  art  my  God." 

Jesus  said  to  the  Jews,  in  the  temple,  on  an  occa 
sion  when  he  was  charged,  somewhat  indiscriminately, 
with  being  a  Samaritan,  and  also  with  having  a  devil, 
"Your  father  Abraham  rejoiced  to  see  my  day:  and 
he  saw  it,  and  was  glad."  This  prophetic  view  of  the 
future  had  been  a  grace  vouchsafed  to  Abraham  by  the 
Spirit ;  and  apparently  also  it  was  through  the  Spirit, 
that  Jesus  was  enabled  to  speak  of  it. 

The  Spirit  of  the  Lord,  as  it  legislated  for  the  Jews, 
anciently,  was  making  ready  for  that  wonderful  liberty, 
wherewith  Christ  was  to  make  the  whole  world  free. 
The  Spirit,  through  the  prophets  and  through  the 
agency  of  nature,  taught  and  guided  the  people  of  Is 
rael,  and  warned  and  punished  them,  and  cheered  and 
blessed  them,  not  for  the  sake  of  them,  as  individuals, 
merely  or  mainly,  but  because  they  were  to  be  a  peo 
ple,  "  of  whom  as  concerning  the  flesh,  Christ "  was  to 
come.  The  Spirit,  as  it  ruled  the  Jews,  foretold  in  its 
action,  the  future  of  the  Gentiles.  These  words  were 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  AND  THE  NEW.      393 

from  the  Spirit,  through  Isaiah,  nearly  eight  hundred 
years  before  the  birth  of  Jesus  Christ.  "  And  it  shall 
come  to  pass  in  the  last  day,  that  the  mountain  of  the 
Lord's  house  shall  be  established  in  the  top  of  the 
mountains,  and  shall  be  exalted  above  the  hills ;  and 
all  nations  shall  flow  unto  it.  And  many  people  shall 
go  and  say,  Come  ye,  and  let  us  go  up  to  the  mountain 
of  the  Lord,  to  the  house  of  the  God  of  Jacob ;  and 
he  will  teach  us  of  his  ways,  and  we  will  walk  in  his 
paths :  for  out  of  Zion  shall  go  forth  the  law,  and  the 
word  of  the  Lord  from  Jerusalem.  And  he  shall  judge 
among  the  nations,  and  shall  rebuke  many  people  ;  and 
they  shall  beat  their  swords  into  ploughshares,  and 
their  spears  into  pruning-hooks :  nation  shall  not  lift 
up  sword  against  nation,  neither  shall  they  learn  war 
any  more."  The  vision  is  not  yet  as  to  accomplish 
ment,  on  the  subject  of  war :  but  it  is  not  therefore  the 
less  wonderful  for  any  man,  who  has  an  eye  for  his 
tory,  and  the  workings  of  the  human  spirit,  and  for  those 
many  other  signs  of  the  times,  which  are  to  be  discerned 
to-day,  besides  what  glitter  from  the  points  of  bayo 
nets.  Ten  or  twelve  generations  had  lived  and  died  in 
the  knowledge  of  the  preceding  prophecy,  when,  through 
Malachi,  the  Spirit  predicted  as  to  its  own  course, "  Be 
hold,  I  will  send  my  messenger,  and  he  shall  prepare 
the  way  before  me  ;  and  the  Lord,  whom  ye  seek,  shall 
suddenly  come  to  his  temple,  even  the  messenger  of 
the  covenant,  whom  ye  delight  in;  behold,  he  shall 
come,  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts.  But  who  may  abide 
the  day  of  his  corning  ?  and  who  shall  stand  when  he 
appeareth  ? "  This  anticipation  of  the  Spirit  was  what, 
four  hundred  years  later,  was  to  be  continued  as  a 
17* 


394  THE   OLD   TESTAMENT   AND   THE  NEW. 

lamentation  of  the  Spirit,  by  the  utterance  of  Jesus 
Christ,  "  0  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem,  thou  that  killest  the 
prophets,  and  stonest  them  which  are  sent  unto  thee, 
how  often  would  I  have  gathered  thy  children  together, 
even  as  a  hen  gathereth  her  chickens  under  her  wings, 
and  ye  would  not !  Behold  your  house  is  left  unto  you 
desolate."  As  to  the  preceding  prophecies,  the  Spirit 
justified  itself.  For,  to  Jerusalem,  it  happened,  just  as 
was  said  by  Jesus  Christ,  as  he  looked  at  it,  from  the 
Mount  of  Olives.  And  we  Christians  all,  do  we  not 
worship  in  a  temple,  which  though  not  made  with 
hands,  has  yet  for  its  porch  and  entrance,  that  house  of 
God  upon  the  mountain,  which  Isaiah  knew  of  ?  And 
are  we  not  Christians,  because  of  what  the  Jews  were 
anciently  ? 

They  were  almost  the  last  words  of  the  last  of  the 
prophets,  "  Behold  I  will  send  you  Elijah  the  prophet, 
before  the  coming  of  the  great  and  dreadful  day  of  the 
Lord."  They  had  been  pondered  by  the  Jews  for  four 
hundred  years.  And  so,  on  his  appearance,  John  was 
asked  if  he  were  the  Christ,  and  if  not  the  Christ,  then 
if  he  were  Elias.  Both  which  things  he  denied.  That 
the  Christ  was  near  him,  he  felt,  but  apparently  without 
being  certain  as  to  who  it  was.  "  And  John  bare  rec 
ord,  saying,  I  saw  the  Spirit  descending  from  heaven 
like  a  dove,  and  it  abode  upon  him.  And  I  knew  him 
not ;  but  he  that  sent  me  to  baptize  with  water,  the 
same  said  unto  me,  Upon  whom  thou  shalt  see  the 
Spirit  descending  and  remaining  on  him,  the  same  is 
he  which  baptizeth  with  the  Holy  Ghost.  And  I  saw 
and  bare  record  that  this  is  the  Son  of  God." 

But  it  is  asked,  "Why  was  that  particular  person 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  AND  THE  NEW.      395 

chosen  rather  than  anybody  else  ;  and  why  was  Christ 
manifested  at  that  particular  time,  rather  than  a  hun 
dred  years  earlier  or  later  ?  But  it  might  as  well  be 
questioned,  as  to  why  Milton  should  have  been  more 
of  a  poet  than  all  other  men  of  his  generation ;  and 
as  to  why  some  plant  should  flower  certainly,  and  yet 
only  once  in  a  hundred  years. 

"  When  the  fulness  of  the  time  was  come,  God  sent 
forth  his  Son,  made  of  a  woman,  made  under  the  law, 
that  we  might  receive  the  adoption  of  sons."  The 
Jewish  people  were  ripe  for  his  production ;  and  all 
nations  were  awaiting  him,  as  their  desire.  And  for 
the  fulness  of  the  time,  it  was  as  though  the  whole 
world  were  folded  about  by  eternity,  with  forces  and 
tendencies  converging  for  a  crisis.  The  air  felt  as 
though  it  had  grown  prophetic ;  and  men  were  "  wait 
ing  for  the  consolation  of  Israel,"  as  Simeon  was,  before 
it  was  revealed  to  him  about  the  Lord's  Christ.  And 
indeed  nature  now  was  about  to  let  in  "  a  multitude  of 
the  heavenly  host,"  for  praising  God,  within  the  hear 
ing  of  mortals  :  and  about  to  be  ready  also  for  admit 
ting  inside  of  its  walls  more  than  twelve  legions  of 
angels,  should  Jesus  pray  for  them  to  the  Father. 

For  "the  fulness  of  the  time,"  other  conditions 
may  have  contributed,  besides  those  which  are  dedu- 
cible  from  prophecy  and  history.  The  philosophy  of 
what  is  called  a  Eevival  of  Eeligion  might  perhaps  be 
made  to  yield  some  information  on  this  subject.  In 
deed,  historically,  it  is  evident  that  there  are  times  of 
what  the  Scriptures  call  refreshing  from  the  Lord. 
And  to  philosophers,  who  even  have  been  irreligious,  it 
has  seemed  as  though  at  certain  emergencies,  there 


396      THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  AND  THE  NEW. 

certainly  must  have  been  a  force,  extraneous  to  men, 
individually,  which  quickened  and  whirled  them,  and 
disposed  of  them  by  a  will  of  its  own4  independent 
and  irresistible. 

And  perhaps,  also,  we  mortals  may  be  spiritually 
affected,  for  numbness  or  quickness,  by  conditions  de 
pendent  on  even  the  particular  quarter  of  the  universe, 
wherein  our  earth  may  happen  to  be  carrying  us.  It 
is  common  experience  that  we  are  dull  or  lively,  with 
the  state  of  the  atmosphere,  and  especially  as  to  elec 
tricity.  Also,  at  present,  we  are  borne,  annually, 
through  showers  of  what  are  called  falling  stars,  but 
of  which,  anciently,  there  would  seem  to  have  been 
no  knowledge.  Men  "  are  fearfully  and  wonderfully 
made " ;  and  as  being  possibly  children  of  God,  they 
are  the  creatures  not  of  a  Commonwealth  simply,  nor 
a  continent,  nor  even  of  a  planet,  but  are  natives  of 
the  universe.  And  a  grand  and  worthy  saying  was 
that  of  Paul,  as  to  the  coming  of  Christ,  and  sounding 
like  what  he  might  have  been  taught  of  God,  —  "  The 
fulness  of  the  time  was  come." 

But  why  did  not  everybody  know  it,  when  the  time 
was  come  ?  But  further  yet  than  that,  why  has  not 
everybody  since  Adam  known  all  that  the  heavens 
have  been  proclaiming  :  and  why  do  so  few  people 
know  even  to-day  what  the  best  astronomers  have 
caught  ?  John  the  Baptist  could  scarcely  believe  in 
himself.  He  knew  that  he  was  the  "  voice  of  one 
crying  in  the  wilderness  "  ;  but  he  did  not  know  that 
he  was  Elias.  As  indeed  how  could  he  know  that  at 
a  time,  when  all  that  he  knew  of  the  one  behind  him 
was,  that  himself  he  was  not  worthy  to  take  off  his 


THE  OLD  TESTAMENT  AND  THE  NEW.      397 

shoes.  By  the  Spirit,  afterwards,  he  was  shown  that 
the  Christ  was  Jesus.  And  Jesus  subsequently  was 
enabled  to  say  of  him,  "  This  is  Elias  which  was  for  to 
come."  Truths  from  the  highest  are  not  readily  sub 
ordinated  by  the  earthly  understanding :  and  the  moni 
tions  of  the  Spirit  are  but  slowly  translated  into  the 
dialect  of  common  life. 

Of  the  preceding  remark,,there  is  some  illustration 
even  in  the  life  of  Jesus.  When  the  Spirit  came  upon 
him,  in  John's  sight,  there  had  to  be  a  reception  of  it 
and  appropriation.  And  Jesus  did  not  on  the  instant, 
begin  to  teach  on  the  river-side,  nor  look  round  for  the 
nearest  sick  person  to  heal.  "  And  immediately  the 
spirit  driveth  him  into  the  wilderness.  And  he  was 
there  in  the  wilderness  forty  days,  tempted  of  Satan ; 
and  was  with  the  wild  beasts ;  and  the  angels  minis 
tered  unto  him."  This  was  not  unlike  what  happened 
to  Ezekiel,  when  the  word  of  the  Lord  first  came  to 
him.  "  So  the  spirit  lifted  me  up  and  took  me  away, 
and  I  went  in  bitterness,  in  the  heat  of  my  spirit ;  but 
the  hand  of  the  Lord  was  strong  upon  me."  For  soli 
tude  and  fasting,  Jesus  was,  for  the  time,  like  some 
prophet  of  the  Old  Testament.  But  not  even  once 
would  he  seem  to  have  been  a  subject  of  that  ecstasy, 
which  was  characteristic  of  the  prophets.  Nor  even 
would  he  seem  to  have  had  what  was  a  common  expe 
rience  with  Daniel.  "  And  I  Daniel  fainted,  and  was 
sick  certain  days  ;  afterward  I  rose  up,  and  did  the 
king's  business  ;  and  I  was  astonished  at  the  vision, 
but  none  understood  it."  But  still  apparently,  Jesus 
was  not  on  the  instant,  both  as  to  body  and  mind,  ab 
solutely  congruent  with  the  Spirit,  which  had  come 


398  THE   OLD   TESTAMENT   AND   THE  NEW. 

upon  him.  And  indeed  long  afterwards,  the  Son  of 
man  prayed  in  regard  to  his  suffering  greatness  as  the 
Son  of  God,  "  Saying,  Father,  if  thou  be  willing,  remove 
this  cup  from  me  :  nevertheless,  not  my  will,  but  thine, 
be  done.  And  there  appeared  an  angel  unto  him  from 
heaven,  strengthening  him." 

And  so  when  Jesus  was  "  led  up  of  the  Spirit,  into 
the  wilderness,"  it  was  that  he  might  be  tempted,  as 
indeed  he  could  not  but  be ;  it  was  that  he  might  man 
ifest  his  temper,  while  growing  suddenly  out  of  the 
condition  of  a  humble  Nazarene,  into  something  even 
greater  perhaps  than  "  the  nature  of  angels  "  ;  it  was 
that  he  might  commence  his  Messiahship  with  over 
coming  Satan,  at  his  greatest  advantage ;  and  it  was, 
that  in  quiet  and  apart  from  the  world,  he  might  have 
his  soul  quicken,  and  fill,  and  strengthen  with  that 
Spirit,  which  was  to  become  his  without  measure. 


THE    SPIRIT. 

THE  Spirit,  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord,  the  Spirit  of 
God,  the  Holy  Ghost !  There  is  nothing  which 
more  intimately  concerns  us  than  that,  and  nothing, 
also,  which  is  more  difficult  to  know  about,  theo 
logically.  And  yet  perhaps  it  is  simple  enough,  for 
willing  and  simple  people.  However,  of  all  the  various 
kinds  of  knowledge,  proverbially  self-knowledge  is  the 
most  difficult.  And  perhaps  it  is  because  the  Spirit 
is  so  near  to  us,  and  is  indeed  part  of  us,  at  times,  and 
like  the  breath  we  draw,  and  the  strength  we  have, 
and  the  light  we  see  by,  that  it  has  been  so  hard  to 
think  about. 

Says  Baumgarten :  "  The  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
remained  a  long  time  undecided.  It  lay  near  to  the 
first  church  in  a  practical  respect  only."  And  says 
Neander :  "  Some  believed  him  to  be  a  mere  power ; 
some  confounded  the  idea  of  person  with  the  charism ; 
others  supposed  him  to  be  a  creature  ;  others  believed 
him  to  be  God ;  and  others  still  were  undecided. 
The  practical  recognition  of  him,  however,  as  the  prin 
ciple  of  the  divine  life  in  man,  was  almost  universal 
in  the  early  church."  It  would  seem,  however,  as 
though  perhaps  the  uncertainty  of  the  primitive  Chris 
tians  may  have  been  a  better  thing  than  the  certainty 
of  their  successors  could  possibly  have  been,  two  or 


400  THE   SPIRIT. 

three  hundred  years  later.  For,  in  the  fourth  century 
of  our  era,  the  Christian  Church  was  permeated  through 
door  and  window,  by  influences  from  the  surrounding 
world  of  heathenism  and  "  philosophy  falsely  so  called." 
The  Apostles'  Creed,  as  it  is  called,  would  seem  to  have 
been  the  earliest  creed  of  the  Church.  And  as  to  the 
Spirit,  this  creed  says  simply,  "  I  believe  in  the  Holy 
Ghost."  And  for  a  more  particular  belief  than  that, 
the  Creed  would  certainly  commend  us  to  the  Scrip 
tures,  and  not  to  the  controversialists  of  the  third  and 
fourth  centuries. 

What,  then,  is  to  be  understood  by  the  Spirit  of 
God,  the  Holy  Spirit ;  that  Spirit  which  was  promised 
and  poured  out ;  which  rested  on  a  person,  and  with 
which  people  were  baptized  ?  Like  "  the  Word,"  it  is 
a  phrase  both  generic  and  special,  and  of  various  mean 
ings.  The  primary  meaning  of  the  Scriptural  word 
for  Spirit  is  breath  or  wind;  just  as  the  primitive 
meaning  of  "  Logos  "  is  that  by  which  men  word  their 
thoughts.  Other  meanings  of  the  word  "spirit"  are 
the  spirit  of  a  living  man,  and  the  spirit  of  a  man 
which  has  departed  the  body.  Angels  are  called 
spirits.  God  is  described  as  being  spirit ;  and  his  ac 
tion  in  nature  and  on  man  is  said  to  be  through  the 
Spirit. 

Jesus  Christ  said  that  God  is  spirit.  At  the  beginning 
of  creation,  "  The  Spirit  of  God  moved  upon  the  face  of 
the  waters."  And  said  Job,  "  By  his  spirit  he  hath  gar 
nished  the  heavens."  And  said  Elihu  to  Job,  "  If  he 
gather  unto  himself  his  spirit  and  his  breath,  all  flesh 
shall  perish  together,  and  man  shall  turn  again  unto 
the  dust."  It  is  true  that  "  there  is  a  spirit  in  man  "  ; 


THE   SPIRIT.  401 

but  it  is  from  another  spirit  than  itself,  that  it  lives  to 
any  good  purpose  ;  for  it  understands  aright  only  by 
"  the  inspiration  of  the  Almighty."  Spirit  is  the  life 
of  everything.  And  it  is  the  life  of  my  life ;  and  it 
is  also  what  must  be  with  me,  as  a  foreign  presence,  or 
else  I  could  not  be  myself,  nor  think,  nor  have  a  word 
on  my  tongue.  "  Such  knowledge  is  too  wonderful  for 
me ;  it  is  high,  I  cannot  attain  unto  it.  Whither 
shall  I  go  from  thy  spirit  ?  "  But  besides  this  pervad 
ing,  life-supporting  presence  of  the  Spirit,  there  is  an 
action  of  it  which  is  intermittent,  conditional,  and 
occasional. 

When  "  all  the  sons  of  God  shouted  for  joy  "  at  the 
beginning  of  our  earth,  no  doubt,  it  was  mainly,  be 
cause  for  them,  the  new  house  prophesied  of  its  in 
habitants,  that  were  to  be,  age  after  age. 

And  as  to  the  human  body  merely,  it  is  plain  now, 
that  type  after  type  in  creation,  it  is  what  nature  had 
been  forecasting,  from  the  first  saurian  that  ever  crept, 
and  from  the  time  when  the  elephant  was  endowed 
with  a  trunk,  so  wonderfully  like  the  arm  and  hand 
of  a  man,  for  pliability,  adaptability,  and  delicacy  of 
touch.  Yes,  and  from  a  period  long  before  Adam,  by 
a  hundred  symptomatic  creations,  nature  prophesied 
of  man,  as  he  was  to  be,  not  merely  as  to  the  shape  of 
his  body,  but  even  also  as  to  those  instincts  which 
largely  determine  his  manner  of  life. 

Out  of  the  same  dust  of  the  ground  as  an  elephant 
was  the  body  of  Adam  formed,  by  the  Lord  God ;  but 
into  that  human  body,  as  being  a  temple,  wherein  there 
was  to  be  worship  afterwards,  there  was  breathed  "  the 
breath  of  life ;  and  man  became  a  living  soul."  That 


402  THE   SPIRIT. 

breath !  to  all  eternity,  it  is  the  difference  of  a  step  be 
tween  the  highest  bestial  and  the  lowest  spiritual ;  it  is 
the  width  of  a  proper  miracle,  on  the  scale  of  creation. 

He  is  liable  to  be  confused  by  light,  for  which  inci 
dentally  he  may  not  be  ready;  but  otherwise  by  na 
ture,  man  is  all  that  the  best  beast  is,  and  additionally, 
he  is  created  with  a  susceptibility  as  to  influences,  from 
what  is  super-bestial,  and  even  supernatural.  What 
was  written  as  to  a  higher  plane  spiritually  than  what 
Adam  started  on,  is  yet  applicable  as  to  the  coming  of 
the  first  man  into  the  world,  —  "A  body  hast  thou  pre 
pared  for  me."  And  because  of  its  adaptation  as  to  the 
world  which  now  is,  and  because  also  of  its  porch-like 
nature  as  to  the  world  which  is  to  come,  the  frame  of 
man,  as  "connected  with  the  book  of  nature,  is  what 
might  well  prompt  the  soul  to  say,  "  Lo,  I  come  (in  the 
volume  of  the  book  it  is  written  of  me)  to  do  thy  will, 
0  God." 

A  living  soul,  that  could  be  spoken  to,  spiritually, 
and  that  could  hear,  and  that  was  even  also  free  to 
hear  or  not  to  hear,  to  obey  or  not  to  obey !  A  new 
creation  this  !  And  also  this  was  the  commencement 
of  a  new  era  under  the  skies.  For  "  the  Spirit  of  God  " 
which  had  been  moving  "  upon  the  face  of  the  waters  " 
had  become  now  a  voice  in  the  garden  of  Eden,  —  the 
Lord  God  speaking. 

"The  Lord  God  speaking!"  exclaims  our  modern 
scepticism.  "That  could  not  have  been,  for  he  was 
not  obeyed;  and  so  on  any  understanding  of  it,  sym 
bolic  or  otherwise,  there  can  be  no  meaning  in  that 
narrative."  And  who  are  we  that  think  so  ?  We  are 
persons  certainly  that  own  to  conscience,  and  who  have 


THE   SPIRIT.  403 

therefore  been  like  Adam  and  Eve,  over  and  over  again, 
for  that  disobedience,  which  seems  so  incredible  in 
them.  For,  certainly,  we  cannot  say  that  the  voice  of 
conscience  would  be  more  authoritative  than  it  now  is 
with  us,  merely  for  quivering  on  the  air  before  reach 
ing  us  spiritually. 

When  man  was  created,  it  was  by  the  same  Spirit 
as  that  which  garnished  the  heavens,  though  by  a 
diversity  of  operation.  And  when  that  Spirit  which 
had  coerced  and  informed  the  elements  began  the 
training  of  creatures  in  the  image  of  God,  it  was  neces 
sarily  through  adaptation,  and  by  being  fatherly  as  well 
as  almighty,  and  by  being  perhaps  a  voice,  while  as  yet 
conscience  had  not  begun  to  speak,  and  by  being  com 
panionship  for  the  first  human  beings  in  the  solitude 
of  an  unpeopled  world. 

In  the  Scriptures,  when  it  is  said  that  God  spoke, 
the  right  understanding  would  seem  to  be,  that  it  was 
through  an  angel.  Jacob  had  a  dream,  or  more  pre 
cisely  perhaps,  a  vision  in  a  dream,  as  to  which  he 
says  what  follows.  "  The  angel  of  God  spake  unto  me 
in  a  dream,  saying  Jacob :  and  I  said,  Here  am  I." 
But  then  that  same  personage,  which  had  commenced 
speaking  as  an  angel,  as  he  continues  his  speech,  says, 
"  I  am  the  God  of  Bethel,  where  thou  anointedst  the 
pillar,  and  where  thou  vowedst  a  vow  unto  me."  When 
Moses  was  keeping  his  flock  of  sheep  near  Mount 
Horeb,  "  the  angel  of  the  Lord  appeared  unto  him  in  a 
flame  of  fire  out  of  the  midst  of  a  bush."  And  when 
Moses  went  near  to  see  how  there  could  be  such  a  fire, 
and  the  bush  not  be  burning  with  it,  the  voice  which 
called  to  him  out  of  the  bush  was  from  God,  and  it 


404  THE   SPIRIT. 

said,  "I  am  the  God  of  thy  father,  the  God  of  Abra 
ham,  the  God  -of  Isaac,  and  the  God  of  Jacob."  And 
similarly,  it  is  to  be  read,  "  The  Lord  went  before  them 
by  day  in  a  pillar  of  a  cloud,  to  lead  them  the  way." 
And  almost  immediately  afterwards  it  is  written,  "  And 
the  angel  of  God,  which  went  before  the  camp  of  Israel, 
removed  and  went  behind  them :  and  the  pillar  of  the 
cloud  went  from  before  their  face,  and  stood  behind 
them." 

In  the  Book  of  Numbers,  it  is  to  be  read  that  Moses 
talked  with  the  Lord,  and  said  as  to  the  Egyptians, 
"They  have  heard  that  thou  Lord  art  among  this 
people,  that  thou  Lord  art  seen  face  to  face,  and  that 
thy  cloud  standeth  over  them,  and  that  thou  goest  be 
fore  them,  by  daytime  in  a  pillar  of  a  cloud,  and  in  a 
pillar  of  fire  by  night."  And  yet  at  the  commencement 
of  the  Gospel  of  John  it  is  written,  "  No  man  hath  seen 
God  at  any  time."  Now,  how  are  these  two  very  dis 
tinct  statements  to  be  reconciled  ?  It  is  to  be  done 
through  a  third,  very  simply;  and  it  is  to  be  read  in 
the  Book  of  Exodus,  along  with  many  laws,  which 
were  given  at  Sinai.  "  Behold,  I  send  an  angel  before 
thee,  to  keep  thee  in  the  way,  and  to  bring  thee  into 
the  place  which  I  have  prepared.  Beware  of  him,  and 
obey  his  voice,  provoke  him  not ;  for  he  will  not  par 
don  your  transgressions  :  for  my  name  is  in  him.  But 
if  thou  shalt  indeed  obey  his  voice,  and  do  all  that  I 
speak ;  then  I  will  be  an  enemy  unto  thine  enemies,  and 
an  adversary  unto  thine  adversaries.  For  mine  angel 
shall  go  before  thee,  and  bring  thee  in  unto  the  Amo- 
rites  and  the  Hittites." 

When  then  by  the  letter  of  the  Scripture  it  would 


THE   SPIRIT.  405 

seem  as  though  God  had  been  seen  or  heard,  it  is  to  be 
understood  that  it  was  through  his  angel  that  God  was 
manifested.  No  doubt,  in  the  preceding  text,  there  is 
implied  a  philosophy  of  revelation  which  has  not  been 
common,  for  many  ages ;  but  it  is  not  therefore  the  less 
certainly  Scriptural :  and  it  is  indeed  the  philosophy 
of  the  Spirit. 

Seven  hundred  years  later  than  the  giving  of  the 
Decalogue  at  Sinai,  was  this  utterance  through  Isaiah 
the  prophet,  as  to  the  Lord,  and  the  angel  of  God. 
"  For  he  said,  Surely  they  are  my  people,  children  that 
will  not  lie  :  so  he  was  their  Saviour.  In  all  their 
affliction  he  was  afflicted,  and  the  angel  of  his  presence 
saved  them :  in  his  love  and  in  his  pity  he  redeemed 
them ;  and  he  bare  them,  and  carried  them  all  the  days 
of  old.  But  they  rebelled,  and  vexed  his  holy  Spirit." 
Later  still  than  these  words  by  three  hundred  -years, 
were  the  prophecies  of  Malachi.  The  last  of  the  proph 
ets  he  was.  And  the  Spirit  as  it  spake  through  him 
anticipated  the  Gospel.  And  the  following  words 
would  seem  to  foretell  that  the  inauguration  of  Chris 
tianity  would,  in  some  way,  be  attended  by  that  angel 
of  God  who  had  been  "the  angel  of  his  presence"  for 
the  Israelites.  "  Behold,  I  will  send  my  messenger,  and 
he  shall  prepare  the  way  before  me :  and  the  Lord, 
whom  you  seek,  shall  suddenly  come  to  his  temple, 
even  the  messenger  of  the  covenant,  whom  ye  delight 
in :  behold,  he  shall  come,  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts." 
What  a  strange  and  wonderful  utterance  this  is  to 
think  upon !  It  is  the  Spirit  speaking  from  afar  off, 
but  for  effect  at  the  present  day,  almost  as  though  in 
an  unknown  tongue.  For  it  implies  probably  knowl- 


406  THE   SPIRIT. 

edge  which  is  lost,  though  not  perhaps  irrecoverably. 
The  words  of  that  prophecy  are  to  be  read  to-day  by 
the  natural  eye.  But  some  time  they  will  be  spirit 
ually  discerned ;  and  then  they  will  be  like  an  angel 
testifying  as  to  the  Gospel,  from  his  own  connection 
with  it. 

In  the  Scriptures,  then,  an  angel  of  God  is  God  him 
self,  as  it  were.  And  it  would  seem  also  as  though  a 
spirit  in  the  service  of  God  might  some  time  have 
been  accounted  as  the  Spirit  of  God.  And  this  per 
haps  is  an  import  of  the  phrase  which  is  illustrated  by 
the  saying  of  a  Jewish  Eabbi,  as  quoted  by  Lightfoot, 
in  his  Horce  Hcbraicce  et  Talmudiccc.  The  Jews  be 
lieved  anciently  that  a  man  who  wished  to  become  a 
diviner  might  get  a  demon  or  unclean  spirit  to  enter 
him,  by  a  preparation  of  the  nervous  system  through 
fasting,  and  by  waiting  in  a  graveyard.  Said  the 
Rabbi  Akibah,  "Does  the  unclean  spirit  come  upon 
him  that  fasts  for  that  very  end,  that  the  unclean 
spirit  may  come  upon  him  ?  Much  more  would  the 
Holy  Spirit  come  upon  him  that  fasts  for  that  very 
end  that  the  Holy  Spirit  might  come  upon  him."  But 
more  precisely  still  to  the  point  is  the  statement  of 
Lightfoot  that  "the  seven  spirits"  was  an  ancient 
phrase  with  the  Jews  for  the  Holy  Ghost ;  and  that 
that  is  the  meaning  of  the  words  in  the  Book  of  Reve 
lation.  "Grace  be  unto  you,  and  peace,  from  him 
which  is,  and  which  was,  and  which  is  to  come  ;  and 
from  the  seven  Spirits  which  are  before  the  throne ; 
and  from  Jesus  Christ,  who  is  the  faithful  witness, 
and  the  first  begotten  of  the  dead,  and  the  prince  of 
the  kings  of  the  earth."  Of  the  manifestation  of  the 


THE   SPIRIT.  407 

Spirit,  prophecy  was  one  form.  But  by  St.  John 
it  is  distinctly  implied  that  spirits  from  the  spiritual 
world  might  be  the  manifestation  of  the  Spirit  of  God. 
"  Beloved,  believe  not  every  spirit,  but  try  the  spirits 
whether  they  are  of  God :  because  many  false  proph 
ets  are  gone  out  into  the  world.  Hereby  know  ye 
the  Spirit  of  God  :  every  spirit  that  confesseth  that 
Jesus  Christ  is  come  in  the  flesh  is  of  God ;  and  every 
spirit  that  confesseth  not  that  Jesus  Christ  is  come  in 
the  flesh  is  not  of  God."  Also,  that  the  Spirit  may 
manifest  itself  through  individual  spirits,  and  through 
the  manner  in  which  those  disembodied,  invisible 
spirits  may  actuate  human  beings,  appears  by  the 
words  of  St.  Paul,  addressed  to  the  church  at  Corinth, 
as  to  how  people  were  to  behave  during  an  actual 
manifestation  of  the  Spirit.  "  Let  the  prophets  speak 
two  or  three,  and  let  the  other  judge.  If  anything  be 
revealed  to  another  that  sitteth  by,  let  the  first  hold 
his  peace.  For  ye  may  all  prophesy  one  by  one,  that 
all  may  learn,  and  all  may  be  comforted.  And  the 
spirits  of  the  prophets  are  subject  to  the  prophets." 
Hence,  it  would  seem  as  though  sometimes  and  for 
some  purposes  spirits  might  be  the  channels  between 
men  and  God  for  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  be  indeed 
themselves  as  spirits,  the  manifestation  of  the  Spirit. 
Among  the  gifts  of  the  Spirit  to  the  early  Church,  one 
was  "  discerning  of  spirits,"  or  an  instinct  as  to  in 
spiration,  —  ability  for  knowing  the  quality  of  the 
influence  from  which  a  prophet  might  speak. 

The  spirits  by  whom  the  prophets  were  made  to 
prophesy  in  the  early  days  of  the  church  at  Corinth, 
may  perhaps  have  been  some  of  them  of  another 


408  THE   SPIRIT. 

nationality  than  the  Jewish,  or  of  some  age  earlier 
than  that  of  the  captivity.  And  thence  perhaps  may 
have  resulted  the  phenomenon  of  persons  speaking  in 
unknown  tongues.  It  does  not  seem  necessary  to  sup 
pose  that  always  these  tongues  were  absolutely  new,  or 
even  certainly  foreign  to  this  earth.  Commonly  they 
may  simply  have  been  unknown  languages  to  such 
persons  as  were  present  to  hear  them.  And  indeed 
just  as  the  spirits  who  were  attendant  on  the  prophets 
were  to  be  restrained  as  to  utterance  at  times,  so  also 
were  these  unknown  tongues  to  "  keep  silence  in  the 
church,"  unless  there  were  interpreters  present.  This 
speaking  in  unknown  tongues  would  seem  to  have 
been  somewhat  of  an  incidental  manifestation  of  the 
Spirit.  Says  St.  Paul  to  the  Corinthians,  "  I  thank 
my  God,  I  speak  with  tongues  more  than  ye  all ;  yet 
in  tlie  church,  I  had  rather  speak  five  words  with  my 
understanding  "  —  what  a  positive  saying  !  —  "  than  ten 
thousand  words  in  an  unknown  tongue."  And  as  to 
the  nature  or  manner  of  these  tongues,  as  they  were 
spoken  with,  perhaps  there  may  be  some  suggestion 
latent  in  those  words,  which  Paul  could  imagine  might 
be  true  as  to  himself,  when  he  said,  "  Though  I  speak 
with  the  tongues  of  men  and  of  angels." 

And  analogous  with  what  precedes  is  the  remark 
by  Maimonides,  on  the  subject  of  prophecy,  that  "  on 
a  man  intelligent,  wise,  holy,  removed  from  all  worldly 
associations,  and  absorbed  by  heavenly  contemplations, 
the  Holy  Spirit  will  rest :  that  he  intermingles  with  that 
grade  of  angels  called  '  ishim,'  and  becomes  quite  a  dif 
ferent  being  from  what  he  was  before."  That  the  Holy 
Spirit  might  come  on  a  holy  man,  from  his  being  in  af- 


THE   SPIRIT.  409 

finity  with  holy  angels,  was  the  doctrine  of  a  Jewish 
Rabbi  of  the  twelfth  century.  He  is  still  accounted 
the  greatest  Eabbi  that  has  ever  been :  and  he  prob 
ably  read  his  Bible  by  light  as  purely  Jewish  almost, 
as  though  it  had  been  from  the  seven-branched  candle 
stick. 

Said  John  the  Baptist  as  to  Jesus, "  God  giveth  not  the 
Spirit  by  measure  unto  him."  And  Jesus  said  of  him 
self  what  apparently  was  the  same  thing  in  other  words, 
"  Hereafter  ye  shall  see  heaven  open,  and  the  angels 
of  God  ascending  and  descending  upon  the  Son  of 
man."  It  is  noticeable  that  the  words  of  Jesus,  as  to 
the  angels,  are  the  same  words  which  are  used  in  Gen 
esis,  in  the  history  of  that  vision  which  Jacob  had,  as 
to  the  nearness  of  God.  "  Behold  a  ladder  set  up  on 
the  earth,  and  the  top  of  it  reached  to  heaven  :  and 
behold  the  angels  of  God  ascending  and  descending  on 
it."  Carrying  prayers  heavenwards,  and  bringing  back 
answers  and  help,  "  the  angels  of  God  ascending  and 
descending  "  would  seem  to  be  at  times  the  same  as 
the  Holy  Spirit.  And  indeed  are  not  angels  under 
God,  like  "the  seven  spirits  which  are  before  his 
throne  "  ;  and  "  are  they  not  all  ministering  spirits, 
sent  forth  to  minister  for  them  who  shall  be  heirs  of 
salvation  ? " 

The  Spirit  must  have  laws  and  ways  of  which  mere 
mortals  can  never  possibly  know.  Results  from  it 
they  may  experience  personally,  while  yet  the  man 
ner  thereof  may  transcend  all  conjecture.  Till  within 
the  last  two  .or  three  hundred  years,  universally  men 
had  lived  and  died  in  ignorance  that  blood  is  reddened 
and  vitalized  by  the  process  of  breathing.  And  so  it 
18 


410  THE  SPIRIT. 

may  well  be  supposed  that  the  philosophy  of  human 
nature,  spiritually,  will  never  be  knowrn  perfectly  by 
anybody  in  the  flesh.  With  an  unperverted  man, 
prayer  is  as  truly  an  instinct  as  breathing  is.  But  as 
to  how  prayer  is  power,  and  as  to  how  God  feels  it,  as 
man  breathes  it,  mortal  man  may  never  know  ;  nor  is  it 
necessary  that  he  should.  Indeed,  it  cannot  be  other 
wise,  religiously,  than  that  we  ought  to  be  confident  as 
to  some  things  which  we  cannot  see.  We  may  be 
ever  so  prosperous  in  this  world,  and  great,  but  yet  as 
human  beings,  we  are  at  our  best  and  truest  only  when 
"we  walk  by  faith,  not  by  sight."  And  to  persons 
who  live  more  sublimely  than  they  can  possibly  know, 
and  as  "  kings  and  priests  unto  God  and  the  Father," 
there  must  occur  things  higher  as  to  origin  than  what 
they  can  possibly  trace ;  because  spirits  living  by  the 
Spirit  have  infinite,  and  infinitely  various  connec 
tions. 

It  has  already  been  quoted,  in  another  connection, 
what  was  the  last  prophecy  of  the  last  of  the  prophets. 
"  Behold,  I  will  send  you  Elijah  the  prophet,  before  the 
coming  of  the  great  and  dreadful  day  of  the  Lord." 
Four  hundred  years  after  this  prophecy  was  on  parch 
ment,  Jesus  said  as  to  John  the  Baptist,  "  What  went 
ye  out  for  to  see  ?  A  prophet  ?  Yea,  I  say  unto  you, 
and  more  than  a  prophet.  For  this  is  he,  of  whom  it 
is  written,  Behold,  I  send  my  messenger  before  thy 
face,  which  shall  prepare  thy  way  before  thee."  And 
then  Jesus  added,  "  If  ye  will  receive  it,  this  is  Elias, 
which  wras  for  to  come."  . 

Elijah  back  again  on  the  earth,  after  more  than  eight 
hundred  years !  So  indeed  it  would  seem  that  men 


THE   SPIRIT.  411 

might  have  thought.  And  if  there  be  any  connection 
between  this  world  below  and  the  world  above,  as  to 
intercommunicating  agencies,  it  may  well  have  been, 
that  Elijah  of  the  age  of  Ahab  and  Jezebel,  who  had 
vanished  from  earth,  on  a  highway  of  the  Spirit,  and  in 
a  chariot  like  fire,  might  have  been  expected  to  "  first 
come  and  restore  all  things  "  against  the  coining  of  the 
Messiah  and  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  And  of  his  near 
ness  to  the  earth  and  his  connection  certainly  with 
Jesus,  the  narrative  of  the  Transfiguration  is  evidence, 
wherein  it  is  written,  "  Behold  there  talked  with  him 
two  men,  which  were  Moses  and  Elias :  who  appeared 
in  glory,  and  spake  of  his  decease  which  he  should 
accomplish  at  Jerusalem." 

Moses  and  Elias  then  had  known  of  Jesus  in  their 
world,  and  had  conversed  together  about  him,  many  a 
time  probably,  before  they  were  seen  talking  with  him 
on  the  Mount.  And,  no  doubt,  their  discourse  as  to 
his  decease  was  from  their  angelic  foreknowledge,  and 
from  their  sensitiveness  as  to  that  Spirit,  through  which 
an  acorn  is  an  oak-tree  in  a  shell,  and  Christianity  is 
the  development  of  Judaism,  and  the  world  of  to-day 
is  the  germ  of  some  distant  millennium. 

But  Moses  and  Elias  knowing  of  Jesus,  so  as  to 
meet  him  on  the  Mount !  Certainly,  there  are  persons 
to  be  startled  by  that  wording  of  the  fact,  who,  all  their 
lives,  have  been  reading  of  it  in  the  Bible,  very  de 
voutly  indeed,  but  yet  very  thoughtlessly.  Moses  and 
Elias  in  glory  not  know  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth  !  They 
must  have  known  of  him,  and  of  the  purpose  as  to 
which  one  day  he  would  say,  "  For  this  cause  came  I 
unto  this  hour.  Father,  glorify  thy  name."  And  Moses 


412  THE   SPIRIT. 

and  Elias  may  well  have  been  not  only  knowing  of 
Jesus,  but  concerned  also  with  his  way  and  work  in 
the  world.  For,  indeed,  —  another  thing  so  often  read 
and  so  seldom  believed,  —  actually  "there  is  joy  in 
the  presence  of  the  angels  of  God  over  one  sinner  that 
repenteth."  That  grace  which  had  reached  the  earth 
in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ,  —  it  may  well  be  that 
Moses  and  Elias  had  been  accessory  to  it,  and  that 
they  had  even,  during  the  captivity  in  Babylon,  been 
inquiring  among  the  spirits  of  the  prophets  Ezekiel, 
Malachi,  and  Isaiah,  "  searching  what  or  what  manner 
of  time  the  spirit  of  Christ  which  was  in  them  did 
signify,  when  it  testified  beforehand  the  sufferings  of 
Christ,  and  the  glory  that  should  follow." 

It  should  be  observed,  what  is  rarely  and  almost 
never  noticed,  that  on  the  Mount  at  the  time  of  the 
Transfiguration,  what  happened  was  seen  by  Peter, 
James,  and  John  in  a  vision,  and  while  they  were  in  a 
trance-like  state.  "  And  as  they  came  down  from  the 
mountain,  Jesus  charged  them  saying,  Tell  the  vision 
to  no  man,  until  the  Son  of  man  be  risen  again  from 
the  dead."  They  had  seen  in  a  vision,  and  after  an 
unearthly  manner,  just  as  afterwards  "  Cornelius  saw 
in  a  vision  evidently  about  the  ninth  hour  of  the  day 
an  angel  of  God  coming  in  to  him  "  ;  and  just  also  as, 
by  a  corresponding  vision,  Peter  was  prepared  for  hear 
ing  of  what  had  happened  to  Cornelius  the  devout 
centurion  ;  because  having  gone  up  upon  the  housetop 
to  pray,  "  he  fell  into  a  trance,  and  saw  heaven  opened." 
And  similarly,  Daniel  says  as  to  the  commencement 
of  a  revelation  which  was  made  to  him  from  an  angel, 
that  his  strength  failed  him,  "  And  when  I  heard  the 


TfcE   SPIRIT.  413 

voice  of  his  words,  then  was  I  in  a  deep  sleep  on  my 
face."  That  sleep  was  of  the  body,  merely,  and  not 
of  the  soul.  It  was  the  same  state  as  that  in  which 
Abraham  was,  when  a  covenant  was  made  with  him 
by  the  Lord  ;  and  when  "  as  the  sun  was  going  down  a 
deep  sleep  fell  upon  Abram." 

That  sleep  or  fitness  for  visions  is  something  like 
the  same  thing,  apparently,  as  being  "  in  the  Spirit." 
It  is  a  condition  in  which  the  ear  is  closed  against 
thunder,  and  in  which  the  eye  is  as  though  it  were 
dead,  and  in  which  the  skin  is  insensible  even  to  fire. 
It  is  a  state  in  which  the  soul  is  purely  itself,  and 
hears  through  its  spiritual  ears,  and  sees  through  its 
spiritual  eyes,  and  is  conscious  of  another  atmosphere 
than  this  of  earth. 

Also  then  being  "  in  the  Spirit  "  means  often,  being 
in  a  state  in  which  the  body  is  nothing,  and  through 
which,  also,  the  soul  is  among  spirits  and  may  see 
angels.  At  the  time  of  the  conversion  of  St.  Paul, 
Ananias  told  him,  "  The  God  of  our  fathers  hath 
chosen  thee,  that  thou  shouldest  know  his  will,  and 
see  that  Just  One,  and  shouldest  hear  the  voice  of  his 
mouth."  And  now  how  were  these  words  made  good  ; 
and  how  was  Jesus  Christ  seen  by  Paul  ?  This  is 
what  Paul  himself  says  :  "  And  it  came  to  pass,  that, 
when  I  was  come  again  to  Jerusalem,  even  while  I 
prayed  in  the  temple,  I  was  in  a  trance  ;  and  I  saw 
him  saying  unto  jne,  Make  haste,  and  get  thee  quickly 
out  of  Jerusalem  ;  for  they  will  not  receive  thy  testi 
mony  concerning  me."  And  that  the  trance  which  he 
wrote  of  is  as  though  his  body  had  been  abolished  for 
a  time,  or  as  though  the  soul's  connection  had  been  sus- 


414:  THE   SPIRIT. 

pended  with  it,  is  plain  by  what  St.  Paul  says  as  to  his 
having  been  in  Paradise,  when  he  heard  things,  which, 
though  he  might  have  felt,  he  was  unable  to  utter  for 
want  of  words.  The  Principia  of  Newton  never  have 
been  and  never  can  be  translated  into  Erse.  Nor 
possibly,  therefore,  could  the  sublimities  which  Paul 
heard  in  Paradise  have  been  reducible  into  Greek, 
by  any  human  skill.  And  as  to  that  abnormal  state 
which  he  experienced,  his  words  about  it  are  for  sim 
plicity  almost  as  wonderful  as  what  he  narrates.  And 
indeed  they  are  the  words  of  a  man  familiar  with  mir 
acles.  These  are  the  words  :  "  I  knew  a  man  in  Christ 
above  fourteen  years  ago  (whether  in  the  body,  I  can 
not  tell ;  or  whether  out  of  the  body,  I  cannot  tell : 
God  knoweth),  such  an  one  caught  up  to  the  third 
heaven." 

During  the  trance  which  Paul  had  in  the  temple,  at 
Jerusalem,  it  is  possible  that  his  spirit  may  have 
parted  from  his  body,  and  by  some  spiritual  law  may 
have  reached  either  Paradise  or  the  third  heaven,  like 
a  ray  of  light.  But  also  it  is  conceivable  that  while 
Paul  was  entranced  in  the  temple,  his  soul  may  simply 
have  been  wearing  the  body  like  insensate  clothes,  and 
been  receiving  some  influence  from  above,  by  which 
it  became  more  and  more  intensely  spiritual,  and  by 
which  also  it  found  itself  successively  in  affinity  with 
one  heaven,  and  another,  and  even  a  third.  And  of 
that  preternatural  experience,  as  to  the  manner,  either 
understanding  well  corresponds  with  such  texts  as 
these,  in  the  Book  of  Eevelation,  "  Immediately  I  was 
in  the  spirit,"  and  "  He  carried  me  away  in  the  spirit." 

This  being  "  in  the  Spirit "  would  seem  to  be  con- 


THE   SPIRIT.  415 

currently  with  nature.  Man  by  his  nature  is  capable 
of  intromission  as  to  spirit,  and  of  being  caught  up 
into  Paradise,  and  of  hearing  what  the  Spirit  says,  and 
what  also  angels  may  have  to  say  or  show.  And  in 
regard  to  revelation,  the  deep  sleep  of  the  body  which 
was  experienced  by  prophets  and  apostles  may  have 
been  but  a  consequence  of  their  souls  having  been 
intensely  quickened  in  some  way,  at  some  point. 
For  often  persons,  with  great  excitement,  mentally, 
have  found  that  there  had  been  thunder  without  their 
notice,  and  that  even  they  had  been  severely  wounded, 
without  knowing  that  they  had  been  struck.  And  in 
deed  many  times,  martyrs  and  confessors  have  tes 
tified,  as  to  their  having  had  no  sense  of  pain,  while 
the  torturers  were  at  work  upon  them. 

But  how  are  men  approached  or  reached  or  affected 
by  the  Spirit  ?  In  many  ways  perhaps,  and  contin 
gently  on  many  conditions,  as  to  person,  time  and 
place ;  as  indeed  may  well  be  supposed,  when  it  is  re 
membered  how  persons  differ  from  one  another,  men 
tally,  and  by  education  and  by  nationality,  —  and  also 
how  men  of  the  same  descent  must  necessarily  be  dif 
ferenced  by  the  varying  tone  of  the  successive  cen 
turies  into  which  they  are  born. 

In  one  age,  a  man  may  live  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  and 
be  strong  and  joyful  in  it,  without  a  wish  for  a  miracle 
or  a  thought  of  one.  While  in  another  age,  a  man 
cannot  think  but  that  he  grows  from  birth  to  death 
simply  from  out  of  his  earthly  self,  like  a  plant  rooted 
in  the  earth ;  and  for  him,  therefore,  some  gift  of  the 
spirit,  or  some  miracle  or  sign,  might  be  of  infinite  im 
portance,  as  a  thing  for  thought ;  because  of  its  mani- 


416  THE   SPIRIT. 

festing  a  connection  for  him  with  a  world  invisible  of 
spirit. 

A  royal  miscreant  like  Ahab  was  not  approachable 
by  the  Spirit,  as  though  he  had  been  some  "  bruised 
reed."  Isaac,  the  patriarch  and  shepherd,  may  have 
been  capable  of  having  the  Lord  appear  to  him  in  a 
vision,  in  the  night,  while  yet  he  may  have  been 
utterly  incapable  of  having  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord 
breathe  through  him,  for  the  wording  and  soul  of  a 
psalm.  Just  before  his  death,  Jacob  was  more  fully 
prophetic  than  in  all  his  life  before.  "And  Jacob 
called  unto  his  sons,  and  said,  Gather  yourselves  to 
gether,  that  I  may  tell  you  that  which  shall  befall  you 
in  the  .last  day."  And  why,  and  how  was  this  ?  It 
was  because  almost  his  spirit  was  inside  of  the  spir 
itual  world,  and  was  within  hearing  perhaps  of  the 
angel  of  the  covenant ;  and  it  was  because  he  would 
within  a  few  minutes  have  "  gathered  up  his  feet  into 
the  bed,  and  yielded  up  the  ghost." 

Before  the  prophet  Samuel  was  called,  there  had 
been  a  time,  for  the  Jews,  when  "  there  was  no  open 
vision."  And  that  time  would  seem  to  have  been  so 
long  as  that  even  there  had  occurred  with  it  a  change 
in  the  use  of  words.  For,  in  connection  with  Samuel, 
it  is  to  be  read,  that  in  Israel  "  he  that  is  now  called  a 
prophet  was  beforetime  called  a  seer."  And  indeed  it 
was  not  because  of  a  long  time  having  elapsed,  or  be 
cause  of  mere  worldly  craving,  that  ever  the  word  of 
the  Lord  was  vouchsafed.  Nor  ever  was  the  Spirit 
receivable  by  everybody  alike.  While  the  Jews  were 
yet  on  their  journey  from  Egypt  to  the  promised  land, 
the  Lord  had  said,  by  way  of  magnifying  Moses,  over 


THE   SPIRIT.  417 

his  successors,  "  If  there  be  a  prophet  among  you,  I  the 
Lord  will  make  myself  known  unto  him  in  a  vision, 
and  will  speak  unto  him  in  a  dream."  Before  there 
can  be  a  revelation  from  the  highest,  there  must  be  a 
receptive  state  in  some  person  on  the  earth.  And  it  is 
but  a  development  of  this  truth,  according  to  the  phi 
losophy  of  revelation,  to  say  that  certain  persons  of  a 
prophetic  temperament,  must  have  been  faithful  t;> 
their  nature  and  have  been  welcomed  among  their 
fellow-creatures,  before  God  can  draw  nigh  to  men 
through  the  Spirit,  rather  than  by  convulsion,  pes 
tilence,  and  the  terrors  of  the  Lord,  or  by  that  pennl 
blindness,  which  is  none  the  less  fearful  because  it 
does  not  know  of  itself. 

As  to  the  preceding  statement,  worldly  objection  of 
any  kind  is  nothing.  What  is  all  the  state  of  Boeotia 
to-day,  in  comparison  with  Homer  ?  Poetry  is  a 
mighty  influence  ;  for  it  glorifies  the  earth  and  man's 
life  in  it ;  and  it  can  prepare  in  the  mind  the  way  of 
the  Lord.  And  yet  not  every  man,  but  only  one  man 
in  the  seventeenth  century,  was  born  with  a  soul 
which  could  so  live  on  earth  as  to  leave  behind,  on  its 
departure,  the  works  and  the  glory  of  John  Milton. 

Thoughts  from  on  high  as  to  God,  or  high  thoughts 
concerning  God,  can  reach  mankind  only  through  such 
minds  as  may,  at  any  time,  be  open  and  willing  to 
receive  them.  This  gentle  manner  of  approach  is  not 
however  of  necessity.  Though  certainly  the  way  of  the 
Spirit,  in  this  world,  at  present,  would  be  confusion 
worse  than  what  happened  at  the  tower  of  Babel,  and 
would  even  be  suffering  worse  than  what  the  Israelites 
were  punished  with,  in  the  desert,  but  that  it  is  tem- 
18*  AA 


418  THE   SPIRIT. 

pered  for  us  and  administered,  by  what  in  a  Christian 
way,  may  be  called  the  fatherhood  of  God.  And  in 
deed  the  condescension  of  God,  toward  this  world,  as 
he  wraps  it  about  and  fills  it  with  his  Spirit,  is  not  by 
acts  dating  from  eras,  but  it  is  continuous,  and  like  a 
stream,  for  "  ho,  every  one  that  thirsteth." 

Man  must  think  of  God,  before  he  can  feel  that  God 
remembers  him.  "  Draw  nigh  to  God,  and  he  will 
draw  nigh  to  you."  A  lonely  disciple  is  not  without 
Christ,  and  yet  also  these  words  are  not  a  mere  truism, 
however  they  may  be  interpreted,  "  where  two  or  three 
are  gathered  together  in  my  name,  there  am  I  in  the 
midst  of  them."  And  in  these  words,  there  is  some 
thing  spiritual  meant,  and  beyond  what  Novalia  may 
have  intended  intellectually  when  he  said,  "  Certainly 
my  belief  gains  infinitely  as  to  strength,  as  soon  as  it  is 
shared  by  another  person." 

"  The  assembling  of  yourselves  together  "  is  a  form 
of  waiting  for  the  Spirit,  whether  or  not  it  be  so  under 
stood  by  mere  church-goers.  Men  are  approachable  by 
the  Spirit,  not  only  as  individuals,  but  as  societies. 
Any  day,  by  the  mysterious  alchemy  of  the  universe, 
seekers  after  God  may  suddenly  have  their  earnestness 
open  out  into  the  Spirit,  and  have  the  Spirit  come  in 
upon  them.  And  with  taking  "  sweet  counsel  together," 
and  walking  "  unto  the  house  of  God  in  company,"  and 
with  looking  steadfastly  towards  heaven,  Christians  are 
in  a  way  to  see  it  open,  and  to  have  their  hearts  fill 
with  a  strange,  unearthly  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost.  "  He 
that  cometh  to  God  must  believe  that  he  is,  and  that 
he  is  a  rewarder  of  them  that  diligently  seek  him." 
And  so  also  is  it  as  to  the  Spirit.  It  was  on  believers 


THE   SPIRIT.  419 

in  an  expectant  attitude,  and  on  those  who  did  "  wait 
for  the  promise  of  the  Father/'  that  the  Spirit  was 
poured  forth,  after  the  ascension  of  Jesus  Christ.  They 
were  drawn  together  by  their  faith  ;  and  the  thoughts 
of  all  of  them  were  conjointly  a  longing  expectation. 
"  And  when  the  day  of  Pentecost  was  come,  they  were 
all  with  one  accord  in  one  place." 

According  to  the  Scriptures  then  the  Spirit  was  that 
of  which  there  can  be  an  outpouring  in  one  age  and 
a  dearth  in  another.  It  is  what  can  be  imparted  to  a 
man,  and  what  can  be  withdrawn  from  him,  and  it  is 
what  also  he  can  quench  as  to  himself.  Occasionally, 
also,  it  is  what  can  be  imparted  by  one  man  to  another, 
not  however  as  arbitrary  grace,  but  only  like  some  an 
gelic  whisper,  for  the  inmost  being  of  the  recipient. 
In  the  evening  after  his  resurrection,  the  disciples  be 
ing  assembled  together  in  a  room,  of  which  the  doors 
were  closed  for  fear  of  the  Jews,  Jesus  became  present 
among  them  and  breathed  on  them,  and  said,  "  Eeceive 
ye  the  Holy  Ghost."  The  Holy  Spirit  was  also  com 
municable,  occasionally,  by  the  apostles,  through  their 
hands,  while  placed  on  right-minded  persons.  Arguing 
with  the  high  priest  and  the  council,  at  a  very  early 
day  in  the  Church,  Peter  said  of  the  Holy  Ghost  that 
it  was  what  "  God  hath  given  to  them  that  obey  him." 
Arid  at  a  later  period  than  this,  when  Peter  was  preach 
ing  to  hearers  who  were  not  all  of  them  Jews  by  blood, 
to  the  astonishment  of  them  of  the  circumcision,  "  the 
Holy  Ghost  fell  on  all  them  which  heard  the  word." 
Spiritual  affinity  had  met  the  Spirit,  through  the  agency 
of  Peter,  at  Csesarea,  and  then  and  there  and  thereby 
began  to  be  fulfilled  that  promise  which  was  made  to 


420  THE   SPIRIT. 

Abraham  by  the  Lord,  almost  twenty  centuries  before, 
"  I  will  make  of  thee  a  great  nation,  and  I  will  bless 
thee,  and  make  thy  name  great ;  and  thou  shalt  be  a 
blessing;  and  I  will  bless  them  that  bless  thee,  and 
curse  him  that  curseth  thee  ;  and  in  thee  shall  all  fam 
ilies  of  the  earth  be  blessed."  Also  apart  from  all  hu 
man  agency,  and  at  all  times  and  everywhere,  on  the 
assurance  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  Holy  Spirit  is  what  can 
certainly  and  even  perhaps  suddenly  be  obtained  by 
everybody,  by  prayer.  "  If  ye  then,  being  evil,  know 
how  to  give  good  gifts  unto  your  children,  how  much 
more  shall  your  heavenly  Father  give  the  Holy  Spirit 
to  them  that  ask  him  ?  " 

The  Spirit  of  God  may  be  poured  out  on  men,  in 
multitudes ;  or  it  may  spread  from  heart  to  heart  like 
a  flame  ;  or  by  possessing  itself  of  the  body  of  some 
man,  it  may  even  speak  expressly.  It  may  reach  one 
man,  like  some  "  word  of  the  Lord  "  suddenly  revealed 
in  the  mind ;  and  to  another  man  it  may  be  imparted 
by  angelic  agency.  It  may  strike  a  man  with  convic 
tion,  while  he  is  in  a  crowd :  and  conceivably  it  may 
get  lodged  with  him,  during  deep  sleep,  when  some 
times  God  "  openeth  the  ears  of  men  and  sealeth  their 
instruction,  that  he  may  withdraw  man  from  his  pur 
pose,  and  hide  pride  from  man." 

The  Spirit  is  always  the  selfsame,  but  in  operation 
it  may  be  of  infinite  diversity.  And  for  this  reason, 
it  is  variously  described.  The  Spirit  is  the  Holy 
Ghost ;  but  the  Holy  Ghost  is  a  phrase,  which  cannot 
always  be  used  for  the  Spirit  of  God.  Chaos  became 
order  and  was  made  to  blossom  with  beauty,  arid  the 
heavens  around  were  garnished  by  the  Spirit  of  God, 


THE   SPIRIT.  421 

but  not  by  the  Holy  Spirit;  because  fire  and  water, 
trees  and  animals,  are  all  alike  incapable  of  holiness  ; 
and  so  too  are  all  the  stars,  however  they  may  differ 
from  one  another  in  glory.  Prophetically  what  came 
upon  Balaam  was  the  Spirit  of  God  ;  and  it  was  by  the 
same  Spirit  that  prophets  and  apostles  were  inspired  : 
but  if  in  them  it  was  the  Holy  Spirit  and  differed 
from  what  Balaam  felt,  it  was  because  of  their  having 
been  better  men  than  he,  and  sensitive  to  holiness  ; 
and  because  it  was,  as  it  is  written,  "  holy  men  of  God 
spake  as  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost." 

In  the  Gospel  of  John,  the  following  words  were 
spoken,  with  a  view  to  the  distress  which  the  disciples 
were  soon  to  feel,  and  what  also  would  be  their  need 
of  instruction.  And  in  these  passages  the  Spirit  is  the 
Holy  Ghost,  and  it  is  the  Comforter,  and  also  it  is  the 
Spirit  of  truth.  "  I  will  pray  the  Father,  and  he  shall 
give  you  another  Comforter,  that  he  may  abide  with 
you  forever ;  even  the  Spirit  of  truth."  And  then 
soon  afterwards  Jesus  says,  "  The  Comforter,  which  is 
the  Holy  Ghost,  whom  the  Father  will  send  in  my 
name,  he  shall  teach  you  all  things,  and  shall  bring  all 
things  to  your  remembrance,  whatsoever  I  have  said 
unto  you." 

In  the  New  Testament,  what  is  "  the  Spirit  of  your 
Father,"  as  mentioned  by  Matthew,  is  "  the  Holy 
Ghost  "  as  recorded  by  Luke. 

Men  are  reached  by  the  Spirit,  on  one  plane  and 
another.  As  walking,  thinking,  working  creatures  on 
the  earth,  "  the  inspiration  of  the  Almighty  giveth 
them  understanding."  But  for  men  "  in  the  image  of 
God  created,"  the  Spirit  can  be  the  Holy  Spirit.  And 


422  THE   SPIRIT. 

by  still  other  persons,  the  Spirit  of  God  can  be  felt 
like  the  spirit  of  the  Son  of  God,  for  tenderness  and 
encouragement,  and  sweet  loving  assurance.  And  to 
men  who  feel  as  Jesus  felt,  and  who  feel  also  that  cer 
tainly  it  cannot  be  otherwise  than  that  "  the  Father 
loveth  the  Son,"  Paul  would  say,  as  though  it  were  the 
way  of  the  universe,  "  and  because  ye  are  sons,  God 
hath  sent  forth  the  Spirit  of  his  Son  into  your  hearts, 
crying,  Abba,  Father." 

God,  that  made  all  things,  is  "  all  things  to  all  men  " 
to  a  greater  extent  than  ever  Paul  was  made.  From 
north  to  south,  from  the  earth  to  the  sun,  and  from  one 
sun  to  another,  it  is  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  that  the  uni 
verse  is  coherent.  And  it  is  by  the  same  Spirit,  that 
men  are  made  to  differ,  and  the  stars  also  from  one 
another  in  glory,  and  one  era  on  this  earth  from  an 
other,  as  time  wears  on.  When  the  beasts  of  the  field 
were  made,  it  was  by  the  Spirit,  but  not  by  as  much 
of  the  Spirit  of  God  as  what  created  man  in  his  own 
image.  And  man,  as  he  lives,  is  more  and  more  recep 
tive  of  that  Spirit. 

There  are  persons  who  believe  in  the  Spirit  as  a 
pious  word,  but  cannot  conceive  of  it  as  an  actuality 
which  concerns  them.  And  there  are  some  who  say 
scornfully,  "What  sign  is  there  of  the  Spirit,  any 
more  than  there  is  of  spirit,  at  all  ?  A  mere  Hebra 
ism  !  Who  but  the  Jews  ever  thought  of  it  ?  And 
what  way  is  there  by  which  it  could  ever  get  at  us  ? 
There  is  no  possibility  of  it  between  us  and  the  sun ; 
and  under  the  earth,  there  is  certainly  nothing  of  the 
kind."  But  now  the  argument  from  ignorance  is  good 
only  as  it  is  used  by  persons  who  know  a  great  deal, 
which  those  scornful  ones  never  do. 


THE   SPIRIT.  423 

The  susceptibilities  of  human  nature  as  to  spiritual 
action,  are  many,  as  may  perhaps  have  already  ap 
peared.  And  additionally  this  is  conceivable.  As  the 
body  is  the  case  of  the  soul,  so  may  animal  magnet 
ism  serve  for  the  corporeity  of  the  Spirit,  sometimes, 
and  for  one  or  two  purposes.  Just  as  it  is  written  as 
to  Peter  and  John  among  the  Samaritans,  "  Then  laid 
they  their  hands  on  them,  and  they  received  the  Holy 
Ghost." 

But  indeed  myself  already  I  am  spiritually  in- 
sphered,  and  so  I  have  been  ever  since  I  was  born  as 
a  living  soul.  It  is  true,  as  I  look  up,  that  there  is 
nothing  between  me  and  the  sun,  for  such  eyes  as  I 
can  open  as  yet.  Nor  is  it  likely  that  ever  my  spirit 
ual  sight  will  be  opened,  till  I  shall  have  got  through 
the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death.  But  still  if  I 
could  look  to-day,  with  those  eyes,  through -which  it  is 
possible  that  hereafter  I  may  even  see  Uriel  in  the 
sun,  I  should  discern  between  this  earth  and  the  al 
tered  look  of  that  luminary,  at  various  distances,  signs 
probably  of  principalities  and  powers,  and  ways  of  com 
munication  with  the  New  Jerusalem  ;  and  I  should  be 
sensible  of  the  magic  properties  of  another  atmosphere 
than  this  of  earth ;  and  I  might  thereby  also  perhaps 
become  conscious  of  strange  affinities  drawing  me  like 
old  friendships,  towards  Paul  or  Dante ;  and  toward 
some  angel,  who  may  at  some  time  have  encamped 
about  me  in  a  time  of  trouble,  without  my  knowledge  ; 
or  toward  some  remote  ancestor,  whose  name  I  may 
never  have  heard  of;  or  toward  some  spirit,  whose 
course  in  his  earthly  life  was  marked  by  like  lines  with 
my  own ;  or  toward  some  fellow-Christian,  who  may 


424  THE   SPIRIT. 

have  thrilled,  in  church,  without  my  knowledge,  to 
the  same  movement  of  the  Spirit  as  what  quickened 
me. 

Is  it  said  that  there  is  no  avenue  for  the  Spirit,  as 
to  human  nature  ?  It  might  as  well  be  said  that  there 
is  no  channel  in  the  air,  whereby  words  can  pass  from 
man  to  man  ! 

The  universe  is  alive  with  the  Spirit  and  with  spirit 
ual  occupants,  and  has  always  been  thought  to  be  so, 
except  by  a  few  people  now  and  then,  and  here  and 
there,  —  persons  of  a  nature  somewhat  elephantine  as 
to  outlook,  and  unfortunate  as  to  education.  Accord 
ing  to  an  old  word  for  a  prejudice  on  the  subject, 
there  are.  those  who  cannot  believe  in  the  existence  of 
spirit.  There  have  been  persons,  especially  in  France, 
who  have  been  even  bigoted  against  a  belief  in  human 
immortality  or  in  spirit.  During  the  first  half  of  this 
century,  magnetism  was  ardently  studied  in  France, 
but  when  it  began  to  give  signs  of  being  spiritually 
connected,  some  of  its  greatest  adepts  were  shocked 
and  scandalized  as  being  men  of  "  the  world  that  now 
is."  The  Baron  Dupotet  was  so  affected ;  but  yet  he 
could  not  but  say,  "  There  is  an  agent  in  space,  whence 
we  ourselves,  our  inspiration  and  our  intelligence  pro 
ceed  ;  and  that  agent  is  the  spiritual  world  which  sur 
rounds  us."  Those  are  the  words  of  a  French  adept 
and  scholar  as  to  magnetism,  and  which  were  true  to 
his  own  knowledge,  as  he  thought.  And  these  words 
following  are  by  Confucius,  the  contemporary,  indeed, 
of  the  prophets  Zechariah  and  Haggai,  but  yet  who  was 
also  a  Chinese,  "  An  ocean  of  invisible  intelligences 
surrounds  us."  Plotinus  has  been  quoted  in  opposi- 


THE   SPIRIT.  425 

tion  to  Christ  and  tlie  apostles  by  anti-supernaturalists, 
who  apparently  were  quite  unaware  of  his  claims  to 
be  an  ecstatic.  But  Plotinus  said,  what,  no  doubt,  was 
of  his  own  experience,  as  he  believed,  "  All  things  are 
full  of  demons,"  or  in  plain  English,  "Everywhere 
there  are  spirits." 

This  spirituality  of  the  universe  is  the  testimony  of 
almost  all  tribes  and  nations,  in  every  age.  It  was  the 
persuasion  of  Greece,  and  Egypt,  and  Chaldea.  Under 
the  light,  conjointly  of  history  and  criticism,  what  the 
Scriptures  were  especially  given  to  teach  is  not  the  re 
ality  of  the  spiritual  world,  as  many  people  think,  but 
rather  the  certainty  and  nature  and  operation  of  the 
Spirit  of  God,  or  the  Holy  Ghost. 

It  is  of  the  nature  of  the  godhead,  that  it  should  be 
always  revealing  itself,  in  one  way  and  another ;  in 
the  make  of  a  diamond,  in  the  beauty  of -a  fern;  in 
the  cry  of  a  young  raven  and  the  manner  in  which  it 
gets  answered ;  in  the  appearance  of  the  first  man  on 
earth ;  and  in  that  glimmer  of  Providence,  which  is 
perceptible  on  the  stream  of  time  historically,  and  which 
to  some  eyes  is  as  dubious  as  phosphorescence,  and  yet 
still  as  certain. 

Geology  is  science  as  to  the  Spirit  of  God,  while  it 
was  shaping  the  earth.  And  the  Bible  is  the  history 
of  the  Spirit,  in  its  relations  with  man.  The  tent  of 
Abraham,  the  sojourn  in  Egypt,  the  captivity  in  Baby 
lon,  Moriah,  and  the  lake  of  Galilee  are  but  accessories 
to  the  history.  The  Old  Testament  and  the  New  are 
a  revelation  of  every  man  to  himself,  through  the 
Spirit,  and  a  revelation  also  of  the  eternal  Spirit  as  it 
acts  in  time. 


426  THE   SPIRIT. 

And  now  perhaps  we  are  in  a  way,  wherein  can  be 
resumed  more  intelligently  what  was  being  discussed 
about  Elijah  as  the  forerunner  of  Jesus  Christ.  And 
it  should  be  remembered,  that  what  is  now  being  con 
sidered  is  in  connection  with  the  reign  of  the  Spirit, 
made  visible.  During  the  transfiguration,  the  disciples 
saw  Elias  in  the  spiritual  world,  and  so  when  Jesus 
referred  to  his  death,  as  being  perhaps  not  far  off,  "  his 
disciples  asked  him,  saying,  Why  then  say  the  Scribes 
that  Elias  must  first  come  ?  And  Jesus  answered  and 
said  unto  them,  Elias  truly  shall  first  come,  and  restore 
all  things.  But  I  say  unto  you,  that  Elias  is  come  al 
ready,  and  they  knew  him  not,  and  have  done  unto 
him  whatsoever  they  listed.  Likewise  shall  also  the 
Son  of  man  suffer  of  them.  Then  the  disciples  under 
stood  that  he  spake  unto  them  of  John  the  Baptist." 
John  the  Baptist  was  a  man  like  any  other  Jew,  and 
yet  also  he  was  Elias.  The  philosophy  of  this  matter 
is  the  same  as  that  which  was  entertained  by  the  sons 
of  the  prophets,  after  Elijah  had  vanished  in  heaven, 
when  they  said,  "  The  spirit  of  Elijah  dotlr  rest  on 
Elisha.  And  they  came  to  meet  him,  and  bowed  them 
selves  to  the  ground  before  him."  And  so  according 
to  this  account,  John  the  Baptist,  in  the  flesh,  may  in 
some  way  possibly  have  been  influenced  by  Elijah, 
while  dwelling  in  a  state  altogether  foreign  to  flesh 
and  blood,  and  sun,  moon  and  stars.  For  the  spirit 
indeed,  time  and  space  are  nothing,  or  nearly  so ;  while 
sameness  of  mind  or  spiritual  affinity  may,  under 
God,  be  almost  everything. 

But  why  should  John  the  Baptist  have  been  inspired 
by  Elias,  or  in  any  way  have  been  Elias  ?  It  was,  no 


THE   SPIRIT.  427 

doubt,  because  of  the  spiritual  constitution  of  the  uni 
verse.  And  thereby  it  was  not  an  exceptional  event, 
but  was  in  conformity  with  other  things,  which  concern 
us,  and  of  which  some  perhaps  affect  us  frequently. 
In  Patmos,  John  received  a  revelation  from  an  angel, 
which  revelation  the  angel  had  received  from  Jesus 
Christ.  And  it  was  in  a  similar  manner,  probably,  that 
Elijah  was  concerned  with  Christ,  as  making  the  Bap 
tist  "  go  before  him  in  the  spirit  and  power  of  Elias." 
And  indeed  the  whole  ministration  of  the  world,  in 
tellectually,  morally,  and  spiritually,  is  largely  by  me 
diation.  For  when  influences  from  above  reach  men, 
commonly  it  is  through  a  certain  few,  who  are  like 
mediators  for  the  rest.  And  according  to  St.  Paul,  not 
only  was  the  law  "  ordained  by  angels,"  but  also  it  was 
"  in  the  hand  of  a  mediator." 

It  was  by  the  foreknowledge  of  God,  and  through 
the  operation  of  spiritual  laws  no  doubt,  and  of  his 
own  free-will  also,  that  Elijah  was  the  spirit  and  power 
of  John  the  son  of  Zacharias  the  priest.  But  now 
Elias  had  left  the  earth  nine  hundred  years,  when  he 
intervened  through  the  Baptist.  And  yet  also,  nine 
teen  hundred  years  before  Jesus  was  born,  there  had 
been  "  preached  before  the  gospel  unto  Abraham." 

Often  on  earth,  that  which  is  a  mystery  of  the  king 
dom  of  heaven  had  its  beginning  with  the  Spirit,  and 
is  outside  of  the  reach  of  mere  reason,  and  is  what 
only  the  Spirit  can  ever  show,  or  even  hint  about. 

According  to  the  Book  of  Eevelation,  "  Behold  the 
tabernacle  of  God  is  with  men,  and  he  will  dwell  with 
them,  and  they  shall  be  his  people."  In  a  state  of 
more  or  less  intelligence  Archbishop  Fenelon,  Jacob 


428  THE   SPIRIT. 

Bb'hme,  George  Fox,  and  William  Law,  and  Sweden- 
borg,  and  Charles  Wesley  and  his  brother  John,  and 
multitudes,  more  or  less  like  them,  have  entered  into 
the  court  itself  of  that  temple,  during  the  last  two  or 
three  hundred  years.  But  nevertheless,  one  generation 
after  another,  for,  now,  a  long  time,  while  Christians 
have  been  going  up  to  the  temple  for  worship,  com 
monly  they  have  had  but  a  poor  belief,  and  often  none 
whatever,  as  to  the  holy  of  holies,  and  the  positive, 
kind,  familiar,  human  nearness  of  the  Spirit. 

The  holy  of  holies !  Now  under  Christ  Jesus,  the 
actual  place  of  it  is  in  the  soul  itself,  if  only  men  had 
faith  in  it,  and  could  believe  in  the  Spirit. 

And  indeed  it  is  in  the  Spirit,  and  from  the  Spirit, 
that  man  is  to  live  to  all  eternity,  and  even  just  as  he 
does  already.  For,  truly  the  human  body  is  the  high 
est  formation  of  the  Spirit  which  there  is  in  connec 
tion  with  this  earth.  And  indeed,  optically,  diamonds 
of  the  purest  water  are  but  ancient  experiments  in  the 
workshop  of  nature,  with  a  view  to  the  human  eye. 

The  recent  discoveries,  through  which  the  powers  of 
nature  lend  themselves  to  human  use,  and  under  the 
application  of  which  the  fields  grow  more  fertile,  and 
the  depths  of  the  earth  yield  up  their  treasures,  are 
often  spoken  of,  as  nature  unveiling  herself.  Nature 
unveiling  herself,  —  what  is  that  ?  0  thou  poor  idol 
ater  of  second  causes,  what  is  nature  ?  Nature  is  but 
one  of  the  lower  titles  of  God.  And  "  nature  unveiling 
herself,"  if  it  means  anything,  means  the  Spirit  of 
God,  revealing  itself  of  its  own  good-will  on  a  plane 
which  is  level  with  human  intellect. 

But,  at  its  best,  what  is  all  that  eases  our  bodily 


THE   SPIRIT.  429 

life,  or  even  that  glorifies  existence  for  us,  as  mere 
denizens  of  this  earth,  in  comparison  with  that  reve 
lation  of  the  Spirit,  of  which  man  spiritually  is  sus 
ceptible  ?  Fearfully  and  wonderfully  made  as  man  is 
as  to  his  body,  he  is  yet  more  wonderful  still  as  to  his 
soul.  And  of  all  the  creatures  that  have  ever  been  on 
this  earth,  man  only  is  what  can  answer,  in  any  way, 
to  the  fatherhood  of  God.  And  we  human  creatures, 
at  this  late  time,  ought  to  be  able  to  understand  read 
ily  the  meaning  of  St.  Paul,  when  he  asks,  "  Know  ye 
not  that  ye  are  the  temple  of  God,  and  that  the  Spirit 
of  God  dwelleth  in  you  ? " 


JESUS  AND   THE  SPIRIT. 

THIS  essay  is  simply  what  it  purports  to  be,  and  is 
not  a  treatise  on  Christology. 

During  his  stay  in  the  wilderness,  Jesus  was  quali 
fied  for  his  work,  by  having  his  spirit  tried  to  the  utter 
most  by  what  he  was  to  preach  against.  His  trial  was 
probably  like  the  trial  of  Abraham  as  to  his  faith,  and 
was  while  his  soul  was  in  a  state  wherein  it  was  exer 
cised  independently  of  his  bodily  senses,  and  irrespec 
tively  of  geographical  limitations.  And  if  that  condition 
should  be  called  a  state  of  vision,  it  should  be  remem 
bered  that  a  vision  differs  from  a  dream  much  more 
widely  and  profoundly  than  even  waking  does.  From 
out  of  his  inmost  being  Jesus  withstood  that  concen 
tration  of  all  temptation,  for  which  as  to  subtlety  the 
word  is  Satan.  "  And  he  was  there  in  the  wilderness 
forty  days,  tempted  of  Satan ;  and  with  the  wild 
beasts :  and  the  angels  ministered  unto  him." 

On  his  reappearance,  after  his  seclusion  in  the  des 
ert,  he  received  a  message  from  John  the  Baptist.  The 
day  of  the  Lord  is  light  only  for  the  children  of  light. 
And  by  some  persons  it  is  never  known  of  while  it  is 
passing.  John  the  Baptist  was  to  be  famous  forever, 
in  connection  with  the  gospel,  and  yet  for  discern 
ment,  spiritually,  of  the  time  in  which  he  was  living, 
"  he  that  is  least  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  greater 


JESUS   AND   THE   SPIRIT.  431 

than  lie."  John  was  the  forerunner  of  Jesus,  and  also 
he  had  borne  "  record,  saying,  I  saw  the  Spirit  descend 
ing  from  heaven  like  a  dove,  and  it  abode  upon  him  "  ; 
and  yet  "  when  John  had  heard  in  the  prison  the 
works  of  Christ,  he  sent  two  of  his  disciples,  and  said 
unto  him,  Art  thou  he  that  should  come,  or  do  we  look 
for  another  ?  "  It  was  a  "  day  of  visitation."  It  was 
the  time  of  the  Spirit,  and  by  the  Spirit,  judgment 
was  to  be  formed.  John,  as  well  as  Jesus,  was 
withinside  of  its  sphere.  John  was  in  mortal  danger 
of  his  life ;  and  Jesus  probably  felt  that  he  was 
himself  on  the  way  to  Calvary ;  and  so,  as  though 
death  were  nothing,  because  of  the  surrounding  light 
from  heaven,  "Jesus  answered  and  said  unto  them,  Go 
and  show  John  again  those  things  which  ye  do  hear 
and  see ;  the  blind  receive  their  sight,  and  the  lame 
walk,  the  lepers  are  cleansed,  and  the  deaf  hear,  the 
dead  are  raised  up,  and  the  poor  have  the  gospel 
preached  to  them.  And  blessed  is  he,  whosoever  shall 
not  be  offended  in  me." 

This  answer  to  John  was  exactly  like  the  claim 
which  he  had  made  on  his  return  from  the  wilderness. 
He  had  taught  in  various  synagogues  acceptably. 
"  And  he  came  to  Nazareth,  where  he  had  been  brought 
up :  and  as  his  custom  was,  he  went  into  the  syna 
gogue  on  the  Sabbath  day,  and  stood  up  for  to  read. 
And  there  was  delivered  unto  him  the  book  of  the 
prophet  Esaias.  And  when  he  had  opened  the  book,  he 
found  the  place  where  it  was  written,  The  Spirit  of  the 
Lord  is  upon  me,  because  he  hath  anointed  me  to 
preach  the  gospel  to  the  poor ;  he  hath  sent  me  to 
heal  the  broken-hearted,  to  preach  deliverance  to  the 


432  JESUS   AND   THE   SPIRIT. 

captives,  and  recovering  of  sight  to  the  blind,  to  set 
at  liberty  them  that  are  bruised,  to  preach  the  accepta 
ble  year  of  the  Lord.  And  he  closed  the  book,  and  he 
gave  it  again  to  the  minister,  and  sat  down.  And  the 
eyes  of  all  them  that  were  in  the  synagogue  were  fas 
tened  on  him.  And  he  began  to  say  unto  them,  This 
day  is  this  scripture  fulfilled  in  your  ears.  And  all 
bare  him  witness  and  wondered  at  the  gracious  wrords 
which  proceeded  out  of  his  mouth.  And  they  said,  Is 
not  this  Joseph's  son  ?  "  Those  gracious  words  are  not 
to  be  known  of  now ;  but  it  would  seem,  that  in  some 
way,  they  were  provocative,  as  they  were  thought 
about.  And  then  miracles,  like  what  had  been  heard 
of,  from  Capernaum,  would  seem  to  have  been  ex 
pected.  And  thereupon  by  Jesus,  it  was  stated  that  a 
miracle  was  not  a  thing  for  everybody,  nor  forthcoming 
always  at  demand.  Very  instructive  is  the  narrative 
of  this  matter  by  Luke.  More  and  more  devilish 
always  does  the  spirit  of  the  world  become  with  argu 
ing  against  the  Spirit  of  God.  And  so  it  was,  that  in 
his  own  city,  on  a  Sabbath  day,  and  after  having  been 
admired  for  his  gracious  utterance,  that  Jesus  was  in 
danger  from  all  who  heard  him,  for  "  they  led  him  unto 
the  brow  of  the  hill  whereon  their  city  was  built,  that 
they  might  cast  him  down  headlong." 

In  the  synagogue  on  that  Sabbath  day,  as  Jesus  read 
and  spoke,  it  was  because  of  his  having  "  returned  in 
the  power  of  the  Spirit  into  Galilee."  The  power  of 
the  Spirit !  what  was  that  ?  It  was  the  same  thing  as 
what  is  implied  in  this  text,  "And  Jesus  being  full 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  returned  from  Jordan,  and  was 
led  by  the  Spirit  into  the  wilderness,  being  forty  days 


JESUS   AND   THE   SPIRIT,  433 

tempted  of  the  devil"  It  was  that  controlling,  inspir 
ing  power,  by  which,  on  account  of  his  nature,  it  is 
conceivable  that  practically  he  may  have  been  like 
almightiness  in  a  robe  of  clay,  and  like  omniscience, 
as  far  as  the  scanty  words  of  a  poor  dialect  could  af 
ford  it  utterance.  Said  Jesus  of  himself,  "  He  whom 
God  hath  sent  speaketh  the  words  of  God  :  for  God 
giveth  not  the  Spirit  by  measure  unto  him.  The 
Father  loveth  the  Son,  and  hath  given  all  things  into 
his  hand."  And  as  further  illustrating  this  union  of 
Jesus  with  the  Father,  by  the  Spirit,  for  the  manifesta 
tion  of  the  Father  on  earth,  Jesus  said,  "  The  Father 
loveth  the  Son,  and  showeth  him  all  things  that  him 
self  doeth  :  and  he  will  show  him  greater  works  than 
these,  that  ye  may  marvel." 

As  used  by  Jesus,  the  phrase,  "the  Father  that 
dwelleth  in  me,"  would  seem  to  be  of  the  same  import 
as  "  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  is  upon  me."  And  like 
this  variety  of  phrase  is  what  follows.  In  the  Gospel 
of  Mark,  Jesus  tells  his  disciples,  "  Whatsoever  shall 
be  given  you  in  that  hour,  that  speak  ye :  for  it  is  not 
ye  that  speak,  but  the  Holy  Ghost."  But  according  to 
Matthew  it  was  worded  thus,  "  For  it  is  not  ye  that 
speak,  but  the  Spirit  of  your  Father  which  speaketh  in 
you." 

After  his  temptation,  Jesus  "  returned  in  the  power 
of  the  Spirit  into  Galilee."  It  may  help  to  elucidate 
the  phrase,  to  remember  that  Simeon  was  a  just  man 
and  devout,  and  one  of  whom  it  is  written  that  "  the 
Holy  Ghost  was  upon  him,"  and  that  at  the  presenta 
tion  of  Jesus,  "  he  came  by  the  Spirit  into  the  tem 
ple." 

19  BB 


434  JESUS  AND   THE   SPIRIT. 

To  the  modern  mind  it  is  something  strange,  and  a 
thing  to  be  challenged,  that  Jesus  should  have  arrived 
in  Galilee  "  in  the  power  of  the  Spirit."  Whereas  the 
phrase  was  easily  and  naturally  intelligible  till  within 
less  than  the  last  two  hundred  years  ;  and  indeed  had 
been  so  in  every  age  of  that  spiritual  descent,  by 
which  we  Christians  derive  from  Abraham. 

As  to  familiarity  of  belief,  connecting  heaven  with 
earth,  first  an  angel  disappeared,  and  then  a  spirit  be 
came  improbable,  and  then  by  degrees  the  Holy  Ghost 
became  less  and  less  intelligible,  and  more  and  more 
limited  as  to  what  it  might  seem  to  mean.  And  this 
has  been  as  a  murky  effect  of  those  various  philoso 
phies  of  a  materialistic  origin,  which  have  obtained 
during  the  last  two  hundred  years.  It  is  at  this  point 
that  the  records  of  revelation  are  liable  to  be  obscured 
to  minds  thus  accidentally  darkened.  But  the  relia 
bility  of  the  Scriptures,  as  to  meaning,  is  not  therefore 
invalidated.  For  a  dictionary  may  be  lost ;  but  if  it 
should  be  found  again,  and  answer  its  purpose  as  an 
interpreter,  it  is  not  therefore  the  less  trustworthy. 
And  indeed  the  mere  records  of  Christianity,  with 
their  multitudinous  corroborations,  historical  and  psy 
chological,  are  in  the  high  court  of  reason,  and  by 
comparison,  far  superior,  as  to  credibility,  to  all  the  ev 
idences,  on  the  strength  of  which  geology  prides  itself. 
But  apart  from  this  all  and  above  it,  is  what  is  the  main 
evidence  as  to  Christianity,  as  soon  as  ever  a  man  be 
gins  really  to  hear  the  gospel ;  because  "  the  Spirit  it 
self  beareth  witness  with  our  spirit,  that  we  are  the 
children  of  God,"  and  because  further  "  it  is  the  Spirit 
that  beareth  witness,  because  the  Spirit  is  truth." 


JESUS  AND   THE   SPIRIT.  435 

For  a  moment,  on  that  Sabbath  day  in  Nazareth, 
while  prejudice  was  asleep,  and  while  he  was  being 
listened  to  in  the  synagogue,  with  all  eyes  fastened 
upon  him,  Jesus  was  probably  for  everybody  a  man  of 
prophecy,  and  for  some,  perhaps,  even  the  Messiah. 
But  with  being  offended  in  him,  his  hearers  had  him 
change  in  their  sight,  to  what  apparently  was  worthy 
not  only  of  excommunication,  but  even  of  death,  ac 
cording  to  the  law  of  the  synagogue. 

Said  Mcodemus  to  Jesus,  "Kabbi,  we  know  that 
thou  art  a  teacher  come  from  God :  for  no  man  can 
do  these  miracles  that  thou  doest,  except  God  be  with 
him."  But  notwithstanding  these  miracles,  soon  after 
wards  this  happened.  Said  Jesus,  "  He  that  is  of  God 
heareth  God's  words  :  ye  therefore  hear  them  not,  be 
cause  ye  are  not  of  God.  Then  answered  the  Jews, 
and  said  unto  him,  Say  we  not  well  that  thou  art  a 
Samaritan,  and  hast  a  devil?"  On  the  same  facts 
such  different  judgments,  because  of  such  different 
judges ! 

And  in  a  similar  manner,  and  to  a  great  extent, 
Christ  Jesus  was  even  to  his  believers,  what  they  were 
ready  or  qualified  for  calling  him.  And  thence  per 
haps  he  may  have  been  apprehended  variously  by 
persons  of  different  schools,  rabbinically,  and  other 
wise,  and  according  also  as  they  may  have  had  right  of 
entrance  into  the  temple,  as  converts,  or  as  Hebrews 
of  the  Hebrews,  or  as  priests.  And  indeed  before  the 
birth  of  Jesus,  some  of  the  various  descriptions  as  to 
his  office,  were  certainly  phrases  which  were  in  use 
among  the  Jews,  and  were  not  improbably  employed 
as  synonymes,  though  of  diverse  origins  scholastically. 


436  JESUS   AND   THE    SPIRIT. 

And  so  in  the  first  age  of  the  Church,  Jesus  "was  a 
prophet  mighty  in  deed  and  word  before  all  the 
people  "  ;  and  also  he  was  the  angel  of  the  covenant : 
he  was  the  Son  of  man  and  the  Son  of  God  :  he  was 
the  light  of  the  world,  and  he  was  the  Word  made 
flesh  :  and  he  was  the  Saviour  of  the  world,  and  also 
its  Judge.  He  was  "  the  Lamb  slain  from  the  founda 
tion  of  the  world,"  and  he  was  the  "  great  high  priest 
that  is  passed  into  the  heavens,"  and  also  as  Christ, 
he  "  through  the  eternal  Spirit  offered  himself  without 
spot  to  God."  And  further  it  is  as  to  Christ  Jesus,  that 
it  is  written  in  the  epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  "  After  the 
similitude  of  Melchisedec  there  ariseth  another  priest, 
who  is  made,  not  after  the  law  of  a  carnal  command 
ment,  but  after  the  power  of  an  endless  life."  A  grand 
statement  this  !  But  yet  at  the  time  when  it  was 
made  it  must  certainly  have  been  much  more  readily 
intelligible  by  "  a  Hebrew  of  the  Hebrews,"  or  by  one 
brought  up  at  the  feet  of  Gamaliel,  than  by  "  devout 
Greeks." 

The -sun  is  a  thousand  things  for  operation,  as  it 
rises,  and  so  also  was  the  sun  of  righteousness.  Said 
Jesus  as  to  John,  "  A  prophet !  yea,  I  say  unto  you, 
and  much  more  than  a  prophet.  This  is  he  of  whom 
it  is  written,  Behold  I  send  my  messenger  before  thy 
face,  which  shall  prepare  thy  way  before  thee."  And 
that;  by  which  Jesus  Christ  was  the  fulfilment  of  the 
various  conceptions,  which  his  contemporaries  had  of 
him,  was  that  by  which  he  could  say  of  himself,  "  God 
giveth  not  the  Spirit  by  measure  unto  him." 

The  Spirit  of  God  is  equivalent  to  all  miracles  in 
one,  just  as  it  is  the  essential  spirit  of  all  the  de- 


JESUS   AND   THE   SPIRIT.  437 

velopments  or  creations  which  have  been  since  the 
time,  when  what  was  "  without  form  and  void  "  began 
to  grow  into  the  forms  and  powers  of  that  nature, 
which  surrounds  and  supports  us.  It  is  "  the  spirit  of 
life,"  from  insect  to  man,  and  more  divinely  still  it  is 
"  the  spirit  of  life  in  Christ  Jesus,"  through  a  sense  of 
which  any  man  may  become  "  a  new  creature."  It  is 
the  spirit  of  the  universe  waiting  on  man,  as  far  as 
what  is  universal  and  eternal  can  possibly  express  it 
self  through  what  is  merely  temporary  and  local,  or  as 
far  as  human  nature  is  possibly  susceptible  of  it. 

But  here  it  may  be  said,  "  What  then  ?  and  how  is 
it  ?  Human  nature,  at  its  best  —  dust  of  the  earth, 
however  divine  the  soul  may  be  that  wears  it  —  hu 
man  nature,  how  is  it  approachable  by  that  Spirit  ? 
For  indeed  credibility  is  something  and  indeed  it  is  a 
great  matter."  And  so  it  is  :  and  every  seed  is  a  pre 
sumption  of  there  being  somewhere  a  soil  fitted  for  it ; 
and  "  every  word  of  God  "  implies  that  properly  some 
where  there  are  "  ears  to  hear."  And  whatever  gift  in 
any  age  has  come  "  down  from  above,"  must  certainly 
have  reached  man,  through  some  channel  of  which  his 
own  nature  was  the  receptiveness.  A  kind  word  can 
soothe  a  man  mentally:  and  why  then  should  not  a 
man  full  of  "  the  spirit  of  life,"  be  able  to  attune  fel 
low-creatures,  bodily,  and  heal  them  with  a  touch  ? 
Some  people  have  a  wonderful  sense  as  to  character, 
and  a  singular  instinct  as  to  the  spirit  of  their  times, 
and  the  significance  and  connections  of  events  :  and  is 
it  not  conceivable  that  such  persons,  if  quickened  from 
above,  would  readily  grow  prophetic  ?  Certain  people 
have  remarkable  experiences  as  to  dreaming ;  and  it 


438  JESUS   AND   THE   SPIRIT. 

would  seem  that  by  nature  they  may  be  like  those 
persons  who  were  susceptible  of  visions  in  Pentecostal 
times.  This  is  certain  and  very  striking,  psychologi 
cally.  At  a  time  of  great  excitement,  as  to  some  high 
matter,  social  or  religious,  a  thousand  persons  will  sud 
denly  feel  themselves  affected  towards  one  another  like 
brethren,  and  as  though  pervaded  and  possessed  by  a 
common  spirit.  And  by  the  transforming  and  elevat 
ing  effects  of  this  spirit,  every  man  in  the  crowd  will 
feel  as  though  he  had  become  a  new  man.  And  so 
indeed  he  may  be,  for  the  moment,  because  of  the 
affinity  which  he  experiences  as  to  all  the  souls  about 
him ;  and  through  which  he  thrills  to  whatever  is 
strongest  spiritually,  in  the  living  crowd  of  which  he 
is  a  member.  And  what  is  this,  but  a  manifestation 
of  some  of  those  susceptibilities,  on  which  as  a  prep 
aration,  when  the  heavens  are  willing,  the  Spirit  is 
poured  out  ?  The  body  of  man  may  be  clay,  but  it  is 
alive  with  spiritual  possibilities,  because  of  the  in 
dwelling  soul. 

But  Jesus  was  not  accessible  to  the  Spirit,  simply  as 
the  prophets  were.  He  was  never  convulsed,  nor  after 
his  return  from  the  desert,  with  his  nature  explored  by 
his  resistance  of  Satan,  was  he  ever  entranced.  NOT 
for  mood  was  he  dependent  on  external  assistance  of 
any  kind,  as  sometimes  the  prophets  were.  But 
through  him,  as  a  serene  atmosphere,  the  Father  that 
dwelt  within  him,  did  the  works  which  were  won 
dered  at,  and  spoke  the  words. 

Jesus  Christ  was,  on  this  earth,  the  Spirit  of  the 
Highest,  in  action  among  men,  as  condescendingly  as 
when  with  that  Spirit  chaos  was  first  agitated,  and  those 


JESUS  AND  THE   SPIRIT.  439 

ways  were  started  through  which  by  development  and 
concurrence,  and  by  "word  upon  word"  injected  into 
nature,  and  with,  at  last,  the  breath  of  God  for  inspira 
tion,  there  was  produced  a  living  soul  in  the  image 
itself  of  God. 

And  the  Father,  who  was  in  Jesus,  was  the  Spirit. 
But  also  that  presence  was  the  Spirit,  as  it  never  was 
or  could  have  been  in  any  other  person  on  this  earth, 
because  there  never  was  another,  who  could  have  been 
called  Son  of  God,  as  he  was.  And  under  the  high 
h.eavens,  it  was  because  of  the  sonship  of  Jesus,  that 
the  Spirit  in  him  was  the  Divine  fatherhood. 

When  Jesus  visited  his  own  country,  it  is  written 
because  of  unbelief  about  him,  though  he  healed  "  a 
few  sick  folk,"  yet  that  "  he  could  there  do  no  mighty 
work."  And  therefore  the  Father  in  him,  was  not  the 
almightiness  of  the  universe  bearing  down  upon  men 
for  its  own  way  as  mere  power,  but  was  a  spirit  more 
tender  than  that  even  of  the  prophecy  by  Isaiah, 
wherein  it  is  written,  "  Come  now,  and  let  us  reason 
together,  saith  the  Lord." 

Jesus  slept,  and  no  doubt  it  was  that  he  might  wake 
the  better.  And  sometimes  his  soul  was  joyous,  and 
sometimes  sorrowful.  And  therefore  the  eternal  Spirit 
was  expressive  through  him  humanly.  And  it  is  not 
therefore  necessary  to  suppose  that  every  word  of  his 
in  the  cottages  of  Nazareth,  or  in  Decapolis,  or  on  the 
Lake  of  Galilee,  or  in  Jerusalem,  were  his  words  as 
the  Messiah ;  for,  between  his  baptism  by  the  Spirit 
and  his  crucifixion,  he  must  necessarily  have  uttered  a 
thousand  times  more  words  than  what  his  Messiahship 
could  have  been  concerned  with,  and  especially  as  the 


440  JESUS   AND   THE   SPIRIT. 

Son  of  man  "came  eating  and  drinking,"  and  as 
though  in  the  fair  fulness  of  human  nature. 

The  cry  from  the  cross,  "  My  God,  my  God,  why 
hast  thou  forsaken  me  ? "  argued  probably  in  Jewish 
ears,  not  despair,  but  simply  wonder,  humanly,  that  he 
was  not  more  distinctly  conscious  of  the  Spirit.  And 
not  improbably,  by  the  state  in  which  he  was  upon  the 
cross,  that  cry  was  uttered  from  something  like  that 
same  level  in  his  nature,  as  that  from  which  at  the 
river  Jordan,  he  said  to,  John,  as  to  his  being  baptized, 
"  Suffer  it  to  be  so  now :  for  thus  it  becometh  us  to 
fulfil  all  righteousness." 

Such  a  consideration  as  the  foregoing  is  to  be  enter 
tained  by  us  human  beings  reverently  and  humbly, 
separated  as  we  are  from  the  first  century  of  our  era 
by  so  many  days  and  nights,  and  so  many  varieties  of 
thought  and  speculation. 

According  to  John  Smith,  an  eminent  theologian  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  it  was  in  conformity  with 
what  had  been  the  practice  of  the  old  prophets,  when 
Jesus  associated  with  him  the  apostles  as  eyewitnesses 
and  hearers.  And,  no  doubt,  the  gospels  are  records, 
like  what  were  kept  among  the  Jews,  in  all  ages,  of 
the  utterances  of  persons,  who  were  believed  to  have 
the  Spirit.  Of  the  ancient  prophets,  according  to 
Jewish  history,  the  utterances  of  some  which  were 
once  in  books  are  now  lost.  And  of  the  life  of  Jesus, 
of  course,  there  was  much  of  what  was  wonderful, 
which  was  never  recorded,  —  "  many  other  things  which 
Jesus  did."  But  as  to  the  Spirit,  for  those  who  read 
by  the  Spirit,  ten  pages  are  almost  as  good  as  a  thou 
sand.  And  if  not  "  spiritually  discerned,"  the  world 


JESUS   AND   THE   SPIRIT.  441 

itself  full  of  books  as  to  Christ,  would  not  mean  more 
than  what  the  pages  of  the  Four  Gospels  do. 

Said  Jesus  to  the  apostles,  "  Ye  also  shall  bear  wit 
ness,  because  ye  have  been  with  me  from  the  begin 
ning."  And  as  what  they  might  rely  upon  for  assist 
ance,  after  his  death,  Jesus  told  them  of  "the  Com 
forter,  which  is  the  Holy  Ghost,  whom  the  Father  will 
send  in  my  name,  He  shall  teach  you  all  things,  and 
bring  all  things  to  your  remembrance,  whatsoever  I  have 
said  unto  you."  The  prophets  spoke  from  the  Spirit, 
in  the  respective  dialects  of  their  various  times  and 
circumstances.  And  it  was  in  some  similar  way  that 
Matthew  and  John  are  such  different  biographers.  In 
writing  the  life  of  Jesus,  Matthew  evinces  the  faculty  of 
the  publican,  and  the  man  of  business  and  facts.  And 
perhaps  by  no  inspiration  that  was  possible  could  some 
of  the  discourses  of  Jesus  have  ever  been  brought  to  his 
remembrance,  as  they  were  to  the  mind  of  John  :  because 
he  could  never,  in  hearing,  have  apprehended  them,  even 
momentarily,  as  John  did.  And  of  all  the  "apostles, 
the  "  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved "  was  evidently  the 
one  in  whose  mind,  with  the  quickening  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  the  words  and  image  of  Jesus  would  most 
readily  revive. 

The  Gospel  of  John  has  latterly  been  regarded  by 
some  critics  as  less  certainly  authentic  than  its  three 
companions.  It  is  manifestly  more  spiritual  than  they 
are ;  and  it  was  therefore,  no  doubt,  less  popular  than 
they  were  in  the  earlier  ages  of  the  Church ;  and 
therefore,  also,  it  was  not  quoted  by  writers,  as  the 
other  Gospels  were.  That  the  Gospel  of  John  differs 
in  tone  from  the  Gospels  of  Matthew,  Mark,  and  Luke, 
19* 


442  JESUS   AND   THE    SPIRIT. 

and  also  in  amplitude  of  remembrance  is  actually  evi 
dence  as  to  its  authenticity,  when  it  is  remembered 
who  -John  the  evangelist  was  ;  for  because  of  what  he 
had  been  to  Christ  he  was  probably  beyond  all  the  other 
apostles,  receptive  of  the  Spirit,  which,  as  Jesus  said  to 
them,  was  to  "  bring  all  things  to  your  remembrance, 
whatsoever  I  have  said  unto  you." 

But  there  are  persons  who  demur  to  this,  and  who  say, 
"  The  Spirit !  That  is  a  possibility.  But  how  possibly 
could  any  man  ever  have  been  affected  by  it,  and  how 
did  it  operate  upon  him  ? "  But  now  how  is  the  spirit 
immortal  of  a  man  connected  with  his  mortal  body :  or 
how  even  does  the  will  of  a  lion  strike  with  his  paw  ? 
Indeed,  the  universe  may  resound  ever  so  loudly  with 
that  stream,  which  is  the  spirit  of  life,  and  there  will 
be  some,  at  times,  who  will  say,  "  I  do  not  hear,  be 
cause  I  do  not  know  how  I  ought  to."  And  there  is 
many  a  philosopher,  at  the  present  day,  who  does  not 
consider  that  perhaps  he  may  be  partially  insensate  as 
to  spirit"  by  wrong  education ;  and  who  is  like  some 
blind  man  under  the  Falls  of  Niagara,  who  should  say, 
"It  might  be  by  the  sound.  And  intelligent  men,  for 
a  long  while,  have  fancied  it  so.  But  as  I  do  not  my 
self  see  that  it  is  so,  I  will  not  believe  in  the  roar,  as 
being  an  effect  of  these  incredible  Falls.  And  what 
for  the  multitude  is  the  apparent  sense,  must  be  ex 
plicable,  philosophically,  in  some  other  way."  But 
there  are  people  who  are  in  a  still  worse  condition, 
mentally,  than  that  blind  man  under  the  Falls.  For 
they  hold  seriously  that  they  ought  not  really  to  believe 
in  anything  at  all,  because  they  have  never  been  ad 
mitted  behind  their  own  eyes,  where  they  could  watch 


JESUS   AND   THE   SPIRIT.  443 

that  mechanism  of  nature  with  its  spiritual  connections, 
through  which  external  objects  become  thoughts  in  the 
mind.  A  man  who  is  not  to  be  contented  in  any  other 
way,  than  by  being  not  only  himself,  but  also  a  wit 
ness  with  his  own  eyes,  apart  from  himself,  is  neces 
sarily  in  some  way  beside  himself.  But  enough  as  to 
this  scepticism  of  the  day  !  For  it  is  twenty-five  hun 
dred  years  out  of  date  as  a  novelty ;  as  is  evident  by 
these  words  in  the  prophecies  of  Isaiah,  "Woe  unto 
him  that  saith  unto  his  father,  What  begettest  thou  ? 
or  to  the  woman,  What  hast  thou  brought  forth  ? " 

And  like  the  absurdity  denounced  through  the 
prophet  Isaiah,  is  the  folly  which  demurs  to  the  Spirit 
of  God,  simply  as  not  being  concurrent  with  such  laws 
of  nature,  as  have  been  ascertained  at  the  present  day, 
and  as  not  apparently  being  willing  to  be  classed  and 
manipulated,  like  .the  laws  of  chemistry. 

The  Old  Testament  and  the  New,  and  the  Apocry 
pha  also,  in  its  degree,  together  with  ecclesiastical 
memoirs  of  all  ages,  and  along  with  them  many  a  pas 
sage  also  in  pagan  literature,  —  these  are  the  history 
of  man,  as  the  subject  of  the  Spirit  of  God,  the  Holy 
Ghost.  And  Christians  differ  from  one  another  doc- 
trinally,  not  altogether  because  of  more  or  less  learn 
ing,  or  because  of  more  or  less  intellect,  but  because 
also  as  to  the  Spirit,  some  persons  are  more  susceptible 
than  others  are,  and  some  less.  And  this  may  be  just 
simply  as  one  man  differs  from  another  man,  as  to 
poetic  sensitiveness.  Nor  in  this  statement  is  there 
anything  of  presumptuousness  implied.  For  the  ac 
tion  of  the  Spirit  is  but  one  among  many  influences, 
by  which  character  is  formed,  as  is  evident  from  the 


444  JESUS   AND   THE   SPIRIT. 

fact  that  J  udas  was  one  of  the  twelve.  The  Scriptures 
are  like  a  labyrinth,  which  may  be  forced  and  broken 
through  by  self-will ;  but  the  clew  to  them,  and  that 
by  which  alone  there  is  any  intelligence  as  to  the  ways 
involved,  is  the  Spirit,  as  a  subject  of  belief.  And  in 
deed  the  Spirit  of  God  may  well  be  credited  as  what 
made  the  rod  of  Aaron  to  bud  and  blossom,  and  as  be 
ing  also' what,  at  its  will,  might  make  a  child  of  God 
display  himself  like  an  archangel,  and  hold  all  sur 
rounding  nature  like  a  servant. 

The  Spirit  is  everything  as  to  power  and  adaptation 
and  knowledge.  By  it  coral  insects  build  their  cells, 
and  through  it  new  worlds  are  being  evolved.  And 
the  "  Spirit  of  life  in  Christ  Jesus  "  is  that  same  Spirit 
which  seraphs  glory  in,  and  which  also  so  clothes  "  the 
grass  of  the  field."  And  so  now  what  is  there  in  the 
Gospels,  for  which  the  Spirit  cannot  be  credited,  as  it 
was  embodied  in  the  person  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  and 
spake  in  his  words,  and  acted  in  his  deeds  ?  "  O, 
but,"  it  is  said,  "  no  evidence  as  to  the  Spirit  can  be 
strong  enough  to  upset  belief  as  to  the  invariableness 
of  nature."  And  this  is  said  in  easy  forge tfulness  of 
the  fact,  that  there  must  have  been  ten  or  twenty 
different  systems  of  nature  known  to  men,  as  they 
have  fancied.  But  such  indeed  is  the  unspiritual  state 
of  the  Christian  Church  in  some  places,  that  Doctors 
of  Divinity  might  be  taught  things  of  primary  impor 
tance  by  the  paganism  of  Greece  and  even  of  Mada 
gascar. 

As  to  the  miracles  of  Jesus,  the  age  in  which  they 
occurred  is  an  important  witness  for  their  credibility, 
though  it  is  seldom  remembered.  Jesus  appeared  in 


JESUS   AND   THE   SPIRIT,  445 

the  world,  announced  and  also  welcomed  by  prophetic 
voices  ;  and  his  appearance  was  "  when  the  fulness  of 
the  time  was  come."  His  era  was  "the  day  of  the 
Lord."  And  while  it  was  passing,  spiritual  agencies 
were  unusually  active  in  Palestine,  at  least ;  and  even 
the  common  air  seemed  to  be  a  vague  inspiration,  as  it 
was  breathed. 

The  age  of  Jesus  Christ  was  what  Micah  had  prophe 
sied  for  his  people,  and  those  in  authority  over  them  ; 
"  The  day  of  thy  watchmen  and  thy  visitation  com- 
eth ;  now  shall  be  their  perplexity."  It  was  the  time 
which  had  been  foretold  by  Malaclii,  four  hundred  years 
before,  and  which  the  people  of  Israel  thought  they 
would  know  by  the  token,  which  he  gave.  "  Behold, 
I  will  send  you  Elijah  the  prophet  before  the  coming 
of  the  great  and  dreadful  day  of  the  Lord."  How 
that  token  as  to  Elijah  was  given  has  already  been 
stated.  But  of  the  manner  in  which  it  was  regard 
ed  by  the  Jewish  mind,  this  is-  evidence  that  the  dis 
ciples  said  to  Jesus,  "  Some  say  that  thou  art  John 
the  Baptist;  some,  Elias  ;  and  others  Jeremiah,  or  one 
of  the  prophets."  And  this  incident  is  also  of  the 
same  nature,  that  during  the  crucifixion,  when  Jesus 
uttered  a  cry  which  was  not  properly  heard  by  some  per 
sons,  they  said,  "  This  man  calleth  for  Elias."  And  all 
the  while  it  had  been  as  Jesus  had  said  himself,  as  to 
John  the  Baptist,  and  after  his  execution,  "  Elias  is  come 
already,  and  they  knew  him  not,  but  have  done  unto 
him  whatsoever  they  listed.  Likewise  shall  also  the 
Son  of  man  suffer  of  them."  O,  words  so  simple  and 
so  wonderful,  and  out  through  which  spoke  the  Spirit 
of  the  Most  High,  and  as  to  which,  by  comparison,  the 


446  JESUS   AND   THE   SPIRIT. 

prophecies  of  Isaiah  and  Ezekiel  themselves  are  "but 
those  of  minor  prophets  ! 

Elias  not  recognized  at  his  spiritual  coming,  —  Jesus 
on  his  way  to  be  crucified,  — and  Jerusalem  with  that 
fate  becoming  certain  for  it  which  Jesus  Christ  had  pre 
dicted,  —  and  all  the  while  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees  tri 
umphant,  —  this  all  was  because  of  the  Spirit  of  God  ; 
which,  when  it  is  active,  attracts  some  and  repudiates 
others,  inspires  a  Messiah  and  his  witnesses,  and  also 
makes  still  more  distinct  the  temper  and  ways  of  them 
that  would  kill  the  prophets,  and  stone  them  that  are 
divinely  sent. 

That  special  spirit-power,  under  which  the  Jews  had 
been  living  ever  since  the  call  of  Abraham,  was  drawing 
in  the  first  century  of  our  era  all  the  tendencies  among 
them,  open  and  latent,  towards  one  point.  And  that 
point  was  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  as  connected  with  the 
Spirit.  The  question  was  asked,  in  one  way  and  an 
other,  of  Jesus,  "  Art  "  thou  he  that  should  come  ? " 
And  answer  was  made  not  only  by  Jesus  personally, 
but  also  by  the  Spirit  to  which  he  appealed,  and  even 
also  by  "  the  signs  of  the  times."  Said  Simeon,  pro 
phetically,  at  the  presentation  of  Jesus  in  the  tem 
ple,  "  Behold,  thi^  child  is  set  for  the  fall  and  rising 
again  of  many  in  Israel ;  and  for  a  sign,  which  shall 
be  spoken  against."  And  Jesus  as  the  Christ,  was  the 
trial  of  his  people  ;  and  his  day  was  that  of  their  vis 
itation.  Faithfulness  to  the  Spirit,  in  the  past,  would 
have  recognized  him  at  once  as  the  Christ.  But  the 
penal  blindness  of  the  people  was  such,  that  at  the 
sight  of  Jerusalem,  Jesus  could  but  weep  and  say,  "  F 
thou  hadst  known,  even  thou,  at  least  in  this  thy  day, 


JESUS   AND   THE   SPIRIT.  447 

the  things  which  belong  -unto  thy  peace  !  but  now  they 
are  hid  from  thine  eyes.  For  the  days  shall  come  upon 
thee  that  thine  enemies  shall  cast  a  trench  about  thee, 
and  compass  thee  round;  and  keep  thee  in  on  every 
side,  and  shall  lay  thee  even  with  the  ground,  and  thy 
children  within  thee,  and  they  shall  not  leave  in  thee 
one  stone  upon  another  ;  because  thou  knewest  not  the 
time  of  thy  visitation." 

It  was  a  "  day  of  the  Lord,"  and  an  age  of  prophecy. 
During  the  ministry  of  Christ,  Vespasian  was  but  an 
obscure  youth  in  Italy ;  but  also  he  was  fitting  himself 
unconsciously,  as  an  instrument  for  the  hand  of  the 
Lord,  —  he  under  whom,  as  the  emperor  of  Rome,  Jeru 
salem  wTas  to  be  captured,  and  the  temple  destroyed. 
The  eagles  of  the  legions  were  scattered  over  the  vast 
empire,  but  in  Jerusalem,  there  was  a  spirit  working 
like  destiny,  which  inevitably  would  draw  the  armies 
of  Rome  round  the  city,  like  eagles  about  a  carcass. 

Peter,  James,  and  John  in  vision  saw  Moses  and 
Elias  talking  with  Jesus,  as  they  believed.  And  as  a 
simple  matter  of  history,  it  is  certain  that  at  that  time 
all  the  ancient  warnings  in  the  law,  as  to  disobedi 
ence  in  regard  to  the  Spirit,  were  immediately  about 
to  be  made  good,  by  the  dispersion  of  the  Israelites 
among  all  nations ;  and  in  a  manner,  as  to  the  thorough 
ness  of  which,  the  last  eighteen  hundred  years  are  sol 
emn  witnesses.  0  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem !  there  was 
coming  on  thee,  as  Christ  said  to  thee  at  the  time,  and 
as  to  thy  people,  "  all  the  righteous  blood  shed  upon 
the  earth,  from  the  blood  of  righteous  Abel,  unto  the 
blood  of  Zacharias  son  of  Barachias,  whom  ye  slew  be 
tween  the  temple  and  the  altar."  And  the  next  words 


448  JESUS    AND   THE   SPIRIT. 

after  these  are  of  prophecy,  and  are  very  wonderful. 
They  are  the  Spirit  in  judgment  on  its  subj ects.  "  Verily 
I  say  unto  you,  all  these  things  shall  come  upon  this 
generation."  And  those  things,  as  prophecies  of  trou 
ble,  are  to  be  found  recorded  in  the  Gospel  of  Matthew  ; 
and  as  the  actualities  of  history,  they  are  to  be  read 
of  in  the  "Wars  of  the  Jews,  by  Josephus. 

In  a  full  view  of  history,  it  is  hardly  possible  to  think 
otherwise,  than  that  nations  are  subject  to  waves  of 
rise  and  fall  spiritually.  But  the  age  of  Jesus  was  the 
outcome  of  nearly  two  thousand  years  of  administra 
tion  by  the  Spirit  among  the  Jews,  and  in  a  way  more 
special  than  any  other  people  ever  experienced. 

Those  years,  which  were  the  last  of  the  Jewish  peo 
ple  in  Palestine,  and  which  also  were  the  first  of  our 
Christian  era,  —  they  were  truly,  as  Malachi  had  fore 
told,  "  the  great  and  dreadful  day  of  the  Lord  "  ;  and 
yet  also,  at  the  very  beginning,  they  were  what  Zacha- 
rias  could  sing  of,  on  the  prompting  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  saying,  "  Blessed  be  the  Lord  God  of  Israel ;  for 
he  hath  visited  and  redeemed  his  people,  and  hath 
raised  up  a  horn  of  salvation  for  us,  in  the  house  of 
his  servant  David ;  as  he  spake  by  the  mouth  of  his 
holy  prophets,  which  have  been  since  the  world  began." 
That  wonderful  season !  As  the  like  of  it,  there  is 
nothing  else  to  be  conceived  of,  than  the  movement  of 
the  Spirit  of  God,  for  a  new  world,  and  the  quickening 
of  the  elements,  once,  out  of  what  was  without  form 
and  void. 

It  was  a  period  in  which  "  unclean  spirits  "  were  un 
usually  numerous ;  and  during  which  it  felt  almost  as 
though  "the  rulers  of  the  darkness  of  this  world" 


JESUS   AND   THE   SPIRIT.  449 

might  even  loom  upon  the  sight.  It  was  an  era  in 
which  often  "  the  word  of  God "  gleamed  like  "  the 
sword  of  the  Spirit."  It  was  a  time  singularly  charged 
with  spirit.  And  when  ihe  marvellousness  itself  of 
that  age  is  considered,  miracles,  as  "  signs  of  the  times," 
would  seem  to  have  been  almost  as  natural  as  fireflies 
are  to  the  umbrageousness  of  a  tropical  climate. 

It  is  not  in  the  scope  of  this  essay,  to  argue  the 
credibility  of  the  miracles  recorded  in  the  Gospels, 
one  by  one,  nor  yet  to  join  in  the  controversy  as  to 
the  reasonableness  of  the  miracle  concerned  with  the 
withering  of  the  fig-tree.  Everything,  which  is  to  be 
learned  about  these  miracles,  circumstantially  and  his 
torically,  is  easily  accessible. .  The  miracles  of  Christ, 
however,  were  not  universally  believed,  in  his  own  day ; 
nor  were  his  miraculous  words  always  understood. 
Said  Jesus  even  as  to  great  multitudes,  "  In  them 
is  fulfilled  the  prophecy  of  Esaias,  which  saith,  By 
hearing  ye  shall  hear,  and  shall  not  understand ;  and 
seeing  ye  shall  see,  arid  shall  not  perceive."  The  mira 
cles  of  Jesus,  not  believed  in  his  own  time,  as  certainly 
they  were  not  by  the  Sanhedrim  !  How,  then,  can  it 
be  expected  that  they  should  be  credible  to-day  ? 
Simply,  because  it  is  possible,  that  even  to-day,  there 
may  be  a  better  judgment  as  to  those  miracles,  than 
even  what  the  members  of  the  Great  Council  could 
have  formed.  Eor,  at  this  day,  we  are  living  long 
after  the  events,  and  can  see  and  estimate,  and  allow 
for  the  prejudices,  by  which  the  Pharisees  and  Sad- 
ducees  were  blinded.  It  may  be  said,  that  to-day,  men 
may  be  prejudiced  as  to  retrospect.  And  of  course, 
that  is  true.  But  yet  candor,  at  this  present  time  is 

cc 


450  JESUS  AND   THE   SPIRIT. 

not  liable  to  a  tenth  part  of  the  offuscation,  to  which  a 
member  of  the  Sanhedrim  was  subject  by  the  mere  act 
of  entering  the  chamber  of  the  Council. 

In  favor  of  the  Messiahship  of  Jesus,  that  Council 
itself  is  evidence  now,  by  the  manner  in  which  it 
came  to  an  end.  And  at  the  siege  of  Jerusalem  by 
Titus,  every  soldier  round  the  city,  in  his  place,  was 
an  unconscious  witness  for  Jesus  as  a  prophet.  And 
at  the  destruction  of  the  temple,  because  of  what 
Christ  had  said,  every  stone,  as  it  was  thrown  down, 
cried  out  as  to  "  the  name  of  the  Lord." 

The  miracles  of  Jesus  were  "  signs  of  the  times." 
And  the  times,  as  they  seemed  to  be  signified,  were 
abundantly  fulfilled. 

That  '"  day  of  the  Lord,"  that  great  era  of  the 
Spirit,  how  can  it  possibly  be  understood,  without  even 
a  belief  in  the  Spirit  ?  And  it  cannot  be  but  that  the 
commentary  of  many  a  famous  divine,  upon  its  oc 
currences,  trying  to  reconcile  them  to  one  another  and 
to  reason  as  he  thinks,  must  be  what  the  angels  con 
cerned  therewith  would  utterly  disown. 

And  especially,  it  is  only  as  a  man  stands  within  the 
light  of  the  Spirit,  or  as  he  apprehends  what  may  be 
called  the  science  of  the  Spirit,  that  the  evidence  as 
to  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  becomes  fairly  intelligible. 
Why  did  one  man  see,  and  another  man  not ;  and  why 
on  one  or  two  occasions,  with  seeing,  was  there  not 
instant  recognition  ?  Simply  because  it  was  seeing  by 
the  Spirit,  and  with  eyes  which  were  opened  by  it,  in 
some  persons  more  than  in  others.  It  was  seeing 
Jesus  by  eyes  adapted  to  a  body  which  had  become  of 
that  nature,  that  it  could  appear  in  a  room,  "  when  the 


JESUS   AND   THE   SPIRIT.  451 

doors  were  shut,  where  the  disciples  were  assembled  for 
fear  of  the  Jews." 

The  Scriptures  are  not  fully  and  fairly  intelligible, 
when  read  according  to  the  Analysis  of  the  Human 
Mind  by  James  Mill,  or  any  other  such  philosophy. 
For  they  'presuppose  a  pneumatology,  by  which  man 
is  soul  as  well  as  body ;  and  by  which  while  he  is 
chained  to  the  earth,  he  is  yet  also  a  nursling  of  the 
skies. 


JESUS  AND   THE  KESURBECTIOK 

AS  the  Mosaic  dispensation  was  drawing  towards  its 
close,  more  and  more  express  became  the  minis 
tration  of  the  Spirit  through  it.  Moses  had  been  a  law 
giver,  and  David  and  Isaiah  had  been  prophets  ;  and 
Gideon  had  been  like  the  sword  of  the  Lord,  and  Solo 
mon  like  a  miracle  of  wisdom.  But  patriarchs  and 
prophets,  and  all  the  angels  who  had  ever  been  con 
cerned  with  them,  religiously,  were  but  like  servants, 
when  compared  with  him  to  whom  "  God  giveth  not 
the  Spirit  by  measure."  For  "  when  he  bringeth  in  the 
first-begotten  into  the  world,  he  saith,  And  let  all  the 
angels  of  God  worship  him." 

To  the  foregoing  does  any  one  say,  "  Ancient  Hebrew 
idiom ! "  disdainfully  ?  And  so  perhaps  it  is.  But 
what  then  ?  Was  there  ever  a  philosophy  which  did 
not  have  its  peculiar  terms  and  phraseology  ?  Or  is 
science,  in  the  least  degree  discredited,  because  its 
nomenclature  is  foreign  to  the  mind  of  a  Kaffir  ?  And 
is  craniology,  or  is  the  science  of  even  dead  bones,  so 
simple,  as  that  a  person  can  read  a  treatise  on  oste 
ology  with  the  same  intelligence  and  words  which 
suffice  him  perfectly  as  a  merchant  ?  And  history  and 
science,  in  combination,  as  to  the  connection  of  man 
with  God  by  the  Spirit,  ever  since  there  was  first  a 
manifestation  of  the  divine  image  on  the  earth,  —  is  it 


JESUS  AND  THE  RESURRECTION.        453 

anything .  strange  as  to  this,  that  it  may  perhaps  need 
interpretation,  in  some  degree,  even  as  geology  does,  or 
astronomy  ?  How  many  men  there  are  who  grow 
spiritually  blind  through  self-sufficiency !  and  with 
their  flippant  speeches,  how  many  more  persons  there 
are  who  are  perverted  from  the  simplicity  of  truth ! 

No  past  age  can  ever  be  known  as  it  was,  except  by 
a  lamp  like  what  the  light  of  that  time  was.  And 
mere  self-assertion  on  a  subject  like  that  of  "the  ful 
ness  of  the  time "  would  be  of  the  nature  of  blas 
phemy,  except  as  desecration  about  a  temple  was  never 
possible  from  mere  chirping  sparrows,  because  of  their 
being  ignorant. 

Does  a  man  deny  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  as  hav 
ing  any  pertinency  for  him,  because  of  its  involving 
considerations  for  which  he  has  not  the  requisite  learn 
ing,  or  for  which  he  thinks  that  he  has  not  time  ?  or 
because  it  claims  to  be  something  so  very  unlike  to  the 
tenor  of  his  daily  newspaper.  Or  does  he  demur  to  the 
New  Testament  as  being  of  any  special  concern  for 
him,  because  of  its  antiquity  ?  Then  let  him  remem 
ber,  that  from  this  present  hour  to  the  first  day  of  the 
first  year  of  our  Lord  is  a  shorter  space  of  time,  than 
it  was  from  the  birth  of  Jesus  Christ  to  the  promise 
which  was  made  to  Abraham  at  his  call,  "  In  thee 
shall  all  families  of  the  earth  be  blessed." 

By  every  drop  of  blood  in  his  veins ;  by  every  modi 
fication  of  every  thought  which  he  has ;  and  by  every 
stripe  of  suffering,  ever  endured  in  the  world,  and 
through  which,  in  any  manner,  bodily  or  spiritually, 
he  is  healed,  man  is  a  child  of  the  past,  throughout 
all  its  generations.  Men  are  historically  born,  and  are 


454        JESUS  AND  THE  RESURRECTION. 

bound  historically.  And  the  more  of  a  man  that  any 
individual  may  be,  so  much  the  more  solemnly  is  he 
responsible  as  to  the  ages  behind  him,  for  what  they 
may  have  to  testify.  Disown  the  past  simply  as  being 
ancient !  a  man  might  as  well  disown  God  as  not  being 
his  own  little  self ! 

Length  of  time,  merely,  does  not  separate  human 
beings.  After  three  thousand  years,  the  Book  of  Kuth 
is  like  a  tale  of  yesterday.  And  yet  at  this  very  hour 
hate  cannot  possibly  understand  love,  and  is  separated 
from  it  by  what,  as  to  space,  may  be  called  infinity. 
As  to  historical  events,  time  is  almost  nothing  in 
comparison  with  distance  by  philosophy,  or  spiritual 
state. 

The  state  of  mind  being  changed  in  which  docu 
ments  are  read,  it  is  as  though  the  documents  them 
selves  had  been  written  afresh ;  and  then  what  had 
seemed  to  be  discrepancies  according  to  a  materialistic 
understanding,  when  read  according  to  a  spiritual 
philosophy  may  become  parts  which  even  corroborate 
one  another. 

How  strangely  and  often  figures  of  speech  have  be 
come  disfigurements  of  facts  !  And  how  often,  also, 
an  earnest  man  has  been  reduced  to  mere  rationalism 
in  theology,  because  of  the  manner  in  which  "the 
things  of  the  Spirit  "  have  been  argued,  as  though  they 
were  material  monuments,  and  properly  the  subjects 
of  arithmetic,  geometry,  and  mere  logic  ! 

The  age  of  Jesus  Christ,  —  that  day  of  the  Lord  was 
not  exactly  like  yesterday,  though  yet  to-day  there 
are  means  by  which,  critically  and  historically,  it  is 
to  be  known  of  as  it  was.  The  resurrection  of  Jesus 


JESUS  AND  THE  RESURRECTION.        455 

is  not  a  mere  incident  in  history,  because  it  is  in 
finitely  connected.  "For  as  in  Adam  all  die,  even 
so  in  Christ  shall  all  be  made  alive."  That  "  new 
sepulchre  wherein  was  never  man  yet  laid  "  was  about 
to  be  the  birthplace,  as  to  manifestation,  of  "  the  Lord 
from  heaven."  And  that  same  place,  when  left  vacant 
by  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  was  about  to  become  the 
cenotaph  of  mere  Judaism. 

When  Jesus  was  transfigured  on  the  mount,  it  was 
because  of  the  Spirit ;  and  through  the  Spirit  it  was 
that  the  apostles  saw  him,  and  Moses  and  Elias  with 
him.  And  it  was  because  of  the  Spirit,  that  there  was 
"  heaven  open  and  the  angels  of  God  ascending  and 
descending  upon  the  Son  of  man." 

A  voice  from  heaven  had  just  borne  him  witness ; 
when  Jesus  said  to  his  hearers,  "And  I,  if  I  be  lifted 
up  from  the  earth,  will  draw  all  men  unto  me.  This 
he  said,  signifying  what  death  he  should  die."  0 
wonderful  age  and  day  of  the  Lord  !  A  day  which  in 
vision  Abraham  had  desired  to  see,  and  also  had  seen ! 
And  yet,  too,  it  was  a  day  as  to  which,  fourteen  hun 
dred  years  later  than  Abraham,  it  was  doubtful,  pro 
phetically,  how  people  would  be  able  to  endure  it  on 
its  coming  !  And  what  a  time,  indeed,  that  time  was  ! 
And  indeed  otherwise  than  wonderful  how  could  that 
age  have  been,  wherein  he  was  living  through  whose 
death  the  human  race  was  to  be  born  again !. 

"  Now  Herod  the  tetrarch  heard  of  all  that  was  done 
by  him :  and  he  was  perplexed,  because  that  it  was 
said  of  some,  that  John  was  risen  from  the  dead  ;  and 
of  some,  that  Elias  had  appeared ;  and  of  others,  that 
one  of  the  old  prophets  was  risen  again.  And  Herod 


456  JESUS   AND   THE  RESURRECTION. 

said,  John  have  I  beheaded ;  but  who  is  this,  of  whom 
I  hear  such  things  ? "  Herod  was  a  Sadducee,  prob 
ably,  and  yet  with  his  ears  a  little  open  for  hearing. 

Astonishing  times  they  were !  as,  indeed,  well  they 
might  have  been,  while  destiny  as  to  Jerusalem  was 
making  itself  sure  ;  and  while  the  prophets  seemed  to 
be  calling  out  aloud  and  afresh  their  old  predictions, 
and  while  those  events  were  occurring,  of  which  the 
four  gospels  were  to  be  the  long-enduring  records. 
The  promise  to  Abraham  was  about  being  fulfilled; 
and  what  anciently  was  but  a  germ  of  destiny,  was 
about  to  become  full-orbed,  and  to  rise  upon  the  na 
tions,  spiritually,  as  the  sun  of  righteousness  with 
healing  in  its  wings.  A  wonderful  age  it  was  ;  for  it 
was  the  greatest  age,  as  to  crisis  in  history,  which  has 
ever  been.  It  was  an  age  as  to  the  full  manifestation 
of  which  imperial  Kome  was  but  a  servant  for  making 
ready  highways  for  its  great  news  ;  or,  at  best,  but  an 
unquestionable,  though  unconscious,  witness  as  to  the 
keeping  of  the  sepulchre,  in  and  from  out  of  which 
Jesus  rose  again.  Plato  and  ^Eschylus,  and  also  Aris 
totle,  —  what  has  their  worth  been,  in  comparison  with 
the  language  which  they  used,  and  through  which 
Greece  was  but  like  an  intelligent  secretary,  for  help-  ' 
ing  apostles  and  others  to  publish  their  histories, 
epistles,  and  visions,  in  the  best  manner  possible, 
for  the  best  intellects  of  the  age  ! 

It  was  under  heaven,  and  on  the  earth,  "  the  fulness 
of  the  time,"  more  completely  than  Paul  himself,  per 
haps,  ever  thought,  and  in  ways  of  which  it  is  con 
ceivable,  that  hereafter  science  will  have  much  to  say 
as  to  the  conditions  which  concurred,  telluric,  mag- 


JESUS  AND  THE  RESURRECTION.        457 

netic,  and  celestial,  and  also  as  to  something  psycho 
logically,  by  which  human  nature  may  itself  have  been 
ripened  for  fresh  conditions  of  growth.  Let  the  wisdom 
of  Egypt  have  been  all  which  can  possibly  be  claimed 
for  it ;  and  let  the  wise  men  of  the  East  have  been  in 
formed  ever  so  mysteriously ;  yet,  as  a  fact,  historically, 
was  not  there  once  familiarly  named  in  the  cottages 
of  Galilee,  and  current  in  the  streets  of  Jerusalem,  a 
name  which  lias  proved  itself,  up  to  this  time,  to  have 
been  above  every  other  name  ?  And  therefore  that 
age  may  well  be  credited  for  having  been  what  Paul 
claimed  for  it  as  "  the  dispensation  of  the  fulness  of 
time,"  and  thereby  also,  under  Heaven,  as  the  con 
centration  of  all  those  forces,  by  which  human  beings 
live  and  move  and  are  lifted  up. 

When  Jesus  cried  out,  "  0  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem  ! 
thou  that  killest  the  prophets ! "  he  was  at  a  point, 
both  as  to  time  and  place,  where  the  general  effect  of 
Jewish  history  was  becoming  manifest,  as  to  the  law 
which  was  given  by  Moses  ;  and  as  to  the  long  rebel 
liousness,  which  was  punished  by  the  captivity  in 
Babylon;  as  to  what  Samuel  and  Saul  had  been  in 
regard  to  one  another;  and  as  to  what  David  had 
sung,  and  what  so  very  differently  he  had  sometimes 
done  ;  also  as  to  Solomon  so  wise  and  so  foolish  ;  and 
as  to  the  time  in  which  Ahab  and  Elijah  knew  of  one 
another ;  and  as  to  the  ages  respectively  of  the  proph 
ets  from  Isaiah  to  Malachi. 

The  world  was  at  the  beginning  of  a  new  era,  which 
was  to  date  from  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  as  he  was  popu 
larly  called,  but  yet  "  the  world  knew  him  not."  For 
indeed,  at  that  time,  it  was  a  crisis  of  that  nature,  and 
20 


458        JESUS  AND  THE  RESURRECTION. 

so  great,  as  that  what  is  light  to  one  is  darkness  to  a 
thousand.  And,  indeed,  otherwise  than  from  that  rea 
son  how  could  there  have  been  "  killed  the  Prince  of 
life  "  ?  And,  indeed,  that  Prince  himself  said  as  to  the 
people  of  his  time,  "  If  therefore  the  light  that  is  in 
thee  be  darkness,  how  great  is  that  darkness  ! " 

When  heaven  drawrs  nigh  to  earth,  it  is  with  a  light, 
which  is  blinding  darkness  for  some  persons,  while  yet 
for  others  it  is  like  what  angels  might  emerge  from. 
Heaven  draws  nigh  to  earth  for  quickening.  And 
with  quickening  they  are  the  latent  faculties  of  men 
which  specially  are  made  remarkable.  And  it  is  with 
remembering  that  the  spiritual  atmosphere  at  the  be 
ginning  of  our  era  would  seem  to  have  been  inten 
sified,  that  many  of  its  incidents  become  intelligible, 
such  as  the  revival  of  prophecy,  and  the  incursion  of 
unclean  spirits.  A  day  of  the  Lord  is  a  time  in  which 
men  spiritually  are  under  pressure,  for  the  better  if 
they  are  good,  and  for  the  worse  if  they  are  bad.  And 
such  a  time  was  that  wherein  were  included  the  life, 
crucifixion,  death,  resurrection,  and  ascension  of  our 
Lord  and  Saviour,  Jesus  Christ. 

And  even  as  it  was  as  to  Jesus  Christ,  that  on 
being  "  put  to  death  in  the  flesh  "  he  was  "  quickened 
by  the  Spirit,"  so  also  there  were  those  as  witnesses 
who  were  raised  as  to  their  latent  spiritual  faculties, 
and  which  were  those  by  which  they  saw  and  heard 
him ;  and  so,  also,  there  were  others  more  numerous 
still  than  they,  who  felt,  spiritually,  as  to  Jesus  and 
death  that  "it  was  not  possible  that  he  should  be 
holden  of  it." 

The  resurrection  of  Jesus  was  the  manifestation  of  a 


JESUS  AND  THE  RESURRECTION.        459 

crisis  as  to  mankind,  under  heaven  ;  and  it  is  not  to  be 
understood,  at  all,  apart  from  time  and  place  and  a  be 
lief  in  the  Spirit. 

In  regard  to  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  many  of  the 
objections  as  to  belief  in  it  originate  in  such  a  state 
of  mind  as  what  would  say  this,  "  Anatomists  and 
chemists  standing  round,  let  a  dead  body,  on  a  table, 
get  up  and  talk,  and  then  perhaps  men  will  believe." 
And  the  brothers  of  the  people  who  talk  thus  would 
say,  "  Seeing  is  believing ;  and  as  we  did  not  see,  we 
do  not  believe."  But  what  is  Supreme  in  the  Universe 
would  seem  to  be  careless  of  human  pettiness,  even 
at  its  grandest ;  and  sometimes  even  it  would  seem  to 
have  "  chosen  the  foolish  things  of  the  world  to  con 
found  the  wise." 

The  resurrection  of  Jesus  was  the  greatest  fact  of  a 
great  age,  and  it  was  the  culmination  of  the  greatest 
earthly  crisis  under  heaven,  and  as  to  the  significance 
of  which,  not  Jerusalem  only,  but  Egypt  and  Assyria, 
and  Greece  and  Eome,  and  all  time,  also,  by  the  way 
of  prophecy,  were  concurrent. 

In  the  Gospel  of  Matthew,  it  is  written,  as  to  Pilate, 
while  Jesus  was  on  his  trial  before  him,  that  "  when  he 
was  set  down  on  the  judgment-seat,  his  wife  sent  unto 
him,  saying,  Have  thou  nothing  to  do  with  that  just 
man :  for  I  have  suffered  many  things  this  day  in  a 
dream  because  of  him."  A  sign  of  the  times  this  was, 
and  as  to  what  the  atmosphere  was,  spiritually.  Pi 
late's  wife  had  this  experience.  And  so  strange  it  is, 
that  it  has  been  so  little  noticed.  The  prediction  of 
his  Lord  as  to  Peter,  that  he  would  deny  him  thrice  in 
one  short  night,  is  accounted  as  having  been  wonder- 


460        JESUS  AND  THE  RESURRECTION. 

ful  because  of  the  manner  of  its  fulfilment ;  and  surely 
so  it  was.  But  this  dream  of  Pilate's  wife  is  evidence 
as  to  what  the  state  was  of  what  may  be  called  the 
atmosphere,  spiritually,  in  Jerusalem,  at  that  time. 
And  of  like  proof  is  the  opinion  of  Caiaphas  as  to  the 
expediency  of  killing  Jesus,  which  "  spake  he  not  of 
himself ;  but,  being  high  priest  that  year,  he  prophesied 
that  Jesus  should  die  for  that  nation." 

As  to  the  picture  of  the  crucifixion  which  the  gos 
pels  give,  how  many  wonderful  lines  there  are,  which 
eould  never  have  been  drawn  except  from  life  !  And 
also  they  are  lines  which  are  self-sufficient,  as  to  evi 
dence,  for  a  critical  understanding !  For  a  man  with 
"  ears  to  hear  "  that  incident  is  as  true  as  truth  itself, 
as  to  what  the  thieves  said  to  one  another  as  they  hung 
on  their  separate  crosses,  and  as  to  what  Jesus  replied 
to  one  of  them.  Such  words,  at  such  a  time,  and  from 
such  lips  !  "  And  Jesus  said  unto  him,  Verily,  I  say 
unto  thee,  To-day  shalt  thou  be  with  me  in  paradise." 
This  paradise  was  certainly  not  heaven,  because  even 
after  his  resurrection  Jesus  said  to  Mary,  "  Touch  me 
nor ;  for  I  am  not  yet  ascended  to  my  Father."  The 
state  into  which  Jesus  passed  after  his  death  as  a 
mortal  was  that  apparently  wherein,  on  his  entrance, 
he  "  preached  unto  the  spirits  in  prison."  That  place 
or  state,  therefore,  of  paradise  was  probably  one  of  hope 
fulness.  And  on  this  understanding,  these  words  of 
Jesus  to  the  penitent  thief  are  intelligible  and  also  in 
finitely  tender. 

As  to  the  time  during  which  Jesus  was  dying  on 
the  cross,  it  is  written,  "  Now  from  the  sixth  hour  there 
was  darkness  over  all  the  land  unto  the  ninth  hour." 


JESUS  AND  THE  RESURRECTION.        461 

And  by  another  evangelist,  it  is  said  that "  the  sun  was 
darkened."  According  to  the  use  of  language,  it  is 
not  necessary  to  suppose  that  there  was  an  eclipse  of 
the  sun,  either  natural  or  supernatural.  Nor  yet  fairly 
ought  the  historian  to  be  considered  as  being  held  by 
his  words  to  mean  anything  more  than  a  preter 
natural  darkness  in  perhaps  the  region  round  Jerusa 
lem.  As  to  whether  that  darkness  was  noticed  in 
Rome,  or  experienced  by  Caractacus  in  Britain,  is 
simply  a  superfluous  question. 

It  has  been  sometimes  supposed  that  this  darkness* 
was  an  effect  in  nature  occasioned  by  her  conscious 
sympathy  with  the  sight  of  the  crucifixion.  But  that, 
of  course,  is  mere  sentimentalism.  There  are  some 
illustrations  which  might  be  adduced  on  this  subject, 
which  would  be  abundantly  credible  to  some  persons, 
but  which  yet  cannot  be  pleaded  here  without  an  ar 
gument,  which  would  be  a  book  in  itself. 

That  darkness  was  probably  not  a  special  but  an 
accompanying  miracle.  It  was  simply  an  incident  in 
connection  with  the  death  of  Jesus ;  and  what  was 
miraculous  in  it  was  because  of  that  miracle  of  or 
ganization  which  Jesus  Christ  himself  was.  And  prob 
ably  that  strange  darkness  round  Golgotha  was  because 
of  the  greatness  of  that  soul,  which  mortally  was  con 
nected  with  nature,  and  which  by  that  connection  was 
in  agony.  With  every  breath  which  any  man  draws, 
the  air  about  him  is  changed  and  impoverished.  Nor 
is  man  connected  with  the  air,  merely  as  concerns  oxy 
gen  and  nitrogen,  but  by  electricity  and  magnetism, 
and  also,  probably,  by  other  ways  which  are  unknown. 
And  so  it  is  readily  conceivable,  that  in  some  manner 


462        JESUS  AND  THE  RESURRECTION. 

the  forces  of  nature  may  have  been  unbalanced  and 
darkened,  whilst  the  soul  of  Jesus  Christ  was  being 
loosened  from  connection  with  them.  And  as  to  this 
supposition,  there  are  some  things  analogous,  histor 
ically  and  psychologically,  of  which  some  great  minds 
have  been  well  persuaded. 

The  thought  of  there  being  any  possible  connection 
between  a  tempest  and  an  earthquake  was  once  ac 
counted  superstitious,  but  at  present  it  is  scientific. 
That. by  pestilence,  there  could  be  an  obscuration  of 
*the  atmosphere,  was  once  supposed  to  be  merely  a  fancy, 
but  now  it  is  an  ascertained  fact.  And  like  what  im 
mediately  precedes,  let  also  what  follows  be  mentioned 
for  what  it  may  be  worth.  Several  times  in  history, 
as  to  men  who  had  been  like  the  right  arm  of  direc 
tion  for  their  times,  it  is  recorded  that  on  dying,  the 
atmosphere  about  them  seemed  to  signify  itself  by 
darkness  or  by  tempest.  And  now  let  it  be  remem 
bered  that  by  a  spiritual  philosophy,  which  is  not 
likely  to  become  extinct,  Christ  Jesus  was  the  "  one 
mediator  between  God  and  men."  And  then  the 
darkening,  which  there  was  round  about,  at  the  time 
of  his  crucifixion,  will  not  seem  so  strange  as  neces 
sarily  to  be  incredible ;  nor  yet  so  anomalous  but  that 
even  science  may  be  expected  some  time  to  demonstrate 
the  manner  of  it. 

"Jesus,  when  he  had  cried  again  with  a  loud 
voice,  yielded  up  the  ghost.  And  behold  the  veil  of 
the  temple  was  rent  in  twain  from  the  top  to  the  bot 
tom."  In  the  temple  there  were  two  veils ;  but  the 
one  which  was  specially  "  the  veil "  must  have  been 
the  second  veil,  behind  which  was  "the  tabernacle 


JESUS  AND  THE  RESURRECTION.        463 

which  is  called  the  Holiest  of  all;  which  had' the 
golden  censer,  and  the  ark  of  the  covenant  overlaid 
.round  about  with  gold,  wherein  was  the  golden  pot 
that  had  manna,  and  Aaron's  rod  that  budded,  and  the 
tables  of  the  covenant ;  and  over  it  the  cherubims  of 
glory  shadowing  the  mercy-seat."  These  things  were 
memorials  of  the  past,  as  to  the  Spirit.  And  they 
were  also  signs  of  what  the  Jewish  people  had  been 
to  God,  as  "  a  peculiar  people."  And  the  tearing  of 
the  veil  before  them  was  emblematic  that  .thenceforth 
"  the  things  of  the  Spirit "  were  open  to  all  persons, 
who  should  anywhere  ever  be  quickened  by  the  Spirit. 
And  it  was  the  work,  perhaps,  of  "  the  angel  of  the 
covenant."  And  it  was  done,  probably,  as  a  prepara 
tion  of  the  minds  of  men  against  the  day  of  Pentecost, 
and  what  ensued  upon  it. 

By  the  same  evangelist  who  has  just  been  quoted, 
it  is  said,  in  continuation,  that  "  the  earth  did  quake 
and  the  rocks  rent."  This  probably  happened  in  the 
same  way  as  at  the  resurrection.  "  And  the  graves 
were  opened ;  and  many  bodies  of  the  saints  which 
slept  arose,  and  came  out  of  the  graves  after  his  resur 
rection,  and  went  into  the  holy  city,  and  appeared 
unto  many."  Not  graves,  but  monumental  tombs, 
are  what  the  evangelist  himself  mentions.  And  the 
bodies  which  appeared  unto  many  certainly  were  not 
resuscitated  flesh  and  bones.  That  could  never  have 
been,  concurrently,  at  least,  with  the  doctrine  of  St. 
Paul.  "  But  some  man  will  say,  How  are  the  dead 
raised  up  ?  and  with  what  body  do  they  come  ?  Thou 
fool,  that  wThich  thou  sowest  is  not  quickened,  except 
it  die."  And  then,  in  continuation  of  his  argument, 


464        JESUS  AND  THE  RESURRECTION. 

the  apostle  explains  that  "there  is  a  natural  body, 
and  there  is  a  spiritual  body."  The  world  of  nature 
on  that  morning,  at  Jerusalem,  was  powerfully  inter 
penetrated  by  spirit,  and  so  was  very  pliant,  perhaps, 
to  angelic  agency.  And  it  may  be  that  angels  opened 
the  tombs  of  some  well-known  saints,  in  celebration  of 
Christ's  victory  over  death ;  and  it  may  be,  also,  that 
the  saints  themselves  were  present  at  the  time,  because 
of  there  having  been  a  door  opened  from  Hades,  by 
which  for  Christ  to  return  into  his  natural  body,  in 
this  world  of  nature,  on  his  way  to  "  the  right  hand  of 
the  Majesty  on  high."  And  these  bodies  of  the  saints, 
or  these  saints  as  spiritual  bodies,  were  visible  to 
many,  but  not  to  everybody.  They  were  seen  by 
those  persons  whose  spiritual  "  eyes  were  opened," 
through  that  power  of  the  Spirit  which  was  abroad, 
and  by  which  the  time  was  characterized. 

When  the  chief  priests  and  Pharisees  applied  to 
Pilate,  as  the  Roman  governor,  to  have  a  guard  set 
over  the  sepulchre,  they  said  it  was  because  "  Sir,  we 
remember  that  that  deceiver  said,  while  he  was  yet 
alive,  After  three  days  I  will  rise  again."  That  proph 
ecy  was  from  the  Spirit,  just  as  afterwards  the  resur 
rection  itself  was.  Peter  argued  that  the  resurrection 
of  Jesus  had  been  foretold  by  David  in  a  psalm,  which 
is  called  prophetic  ;  and  Peter,  probably,  had  a  much 
better  knowledge  of  the  Spirit,  and  its  manner  of  utter 
ing  itself,  than  is  possible  at  this  dark,  materialistic 
day.  And,  no  doubt,  that  Spirit  which  was  the  res 
urrection  of  Jesus  did  flash  with  forethought  of  it,  in 
the  minds  of  some  of  the  prophets.  Rectified  as  to 
translation,  these  are  the  words  which  were  cited  by 


JESUS  AND  THE  RESURRECTION.        465 

Peter  from  David :  "  For  thou  wilt  not  leave  my  soul  in 
Hades  :  neither  wilt  thou  suffer  thine  Holy  One  to 
see  corruption."  The  soul  of  Jesus  was  not  to  be  left 
in  the  common  world  of  spirits,  the  intermediate  world, 
or  waiting-place  of  spirits,  though  it  was  indeed  to 
enter  it,  as  certainly  it  did,  when  Jesus  proceeded  to 
preach  to  "  the  spirits  in  prison."  Nor  was  the  body 
of  Jesus  to  see  corruption.  And  it  would  seem  like 
some  security  for  the  exact  fulfilment  of  the  prophecy, 
that  for  those  hours  during  which  the  body  was  in 
the  tomb  it  was  partially  embalmed.  "Then  took 
they  the  body  of  Jesus,  and  wound  it  in  linen  clothes 
with  the  spices,  as  the  manner  of  the  Jews  is  to  bury. 
Now  in  the  place  where  he  was  crucified,  there  was  a 
garden ;  and  in  the  garden  a  new  sepulchre,  wherein 
was  never  man  yet  laid.  There  laid  they  Jesus." 

Moses  and  Elias  had  talked  with  Jesus,  as  to  "  his 
decease  which  he  should  accomplish  at  Jerusalem"; 
and  not  improbably  they  may  have  been  present  at  the 
entombment  of  his  mangled  body,  though  invisibly; 
and  it  may  be,  too,  that  in  Hades,  somewhere,  they 
may  have  heard  Christ's  announcement  of  himself  to 
spirits  in  prison. 

It  was  dark  in  the  tomb,  with  its  door  shut  and 
sealed ;  but  suddenly  and  soon  there  was  going  to  be 
"  light  from  heaven,  above  the  brightness  of  the  sun," 
like  the  splendor,  with  which  Paul,  at  his  conversion, 
saw  the  risen  Jesus  invested. 

At  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  "  behold,  there  was  a 

great  earthquake  ;  for  the  angel  of  the  Lord  descended 

from  heaven,  and  came  and  rolled  back  the  stone  from 

the  door,  and  sat  upon  it.     His  countenance  was  like 

20*  DD 


466        JESUS  AND  THE  RESURRECTION. 

lightning,  and  his  raiment  white  as  snow :  and  for  fear 
of  him,  the  keepers  did  shake,  and  became  as  dead 
men."  It  is  not  necessary  to  suppose  that  that  earth 
quake  was  what  might  have  been  felt  on  the  heights 
of  Capernaum  ;  for,  no  doubt,  it  was  of  the  same  local 
character,  and  from  the  same  spiritual  cause  as  when 
a  little  later  "  suddenly  there  came  a  sound  from  heav 
en  as  of  a  rushing  mighty  wind,  and  it  filled  all  the 
house  where  they  were  sitting."  It  was  an  earthquake 
from  spiritual  power  present,  like  what  there  was  when 
"  at  midnight,  Paul  and  Silas  prayed,  and  sang  praises 
unto  God ;  and  the  prisoners  heard  them.  And  sud 
denly  there  wras  a  great  earthquake,  so  that  the  foun 
dations  of  the  prison  were  shaken ;  and  immediately 
all  the  doors  were  opened,  and  every  one's  bands  were 
loosed."  Earth  hangs  on  heaven  by  chains  which  grow 
so  fine  that  they  are  what  seraphs  can  handle,  as  they 
stand  about  the  throne  of  God.  And  when  angels  ap 
proach  material  objects,  it  is  with  a  touch  more  subtle 
and  mighty  than  that  of  electricity.  An  angel  with  a 
countenance  like  lightning  might  well  shake  the  earth 
by  the  sole  of  his  foot.  And  because  of  such  an  one, 
at  the  door  of  the  sepulchre,  "  the  keepers  did  shake 
and  became  as  dead  men."  And  they  were  affected 
just  as  the  companions  of  Paul  were,  at  the  time  of 
his  conversion ;  and  they  again  were  affected  as  those 
men  were  who  were  with  Daniel  when  there  was 
about  him  that  power  which  disclosed  itself  in  a  vis 
ion,  and  on  whom  "a  great  quaking  fell." 

Behind  the  letter  of  the  Scriptures,  on  these  points, 
lies  a  broad  field  of  what  once  was  knowledge,  but 
which  now  is  a  fog  of  materialism,  for  almost  every 


JESUS  AND  THE  RESURRECTION.        467 

reader.  Peter  the  Apostle,  had  looked  into  the  empty 
sepulchre  on  the  morning  of  the  resurrection,  and  af 
terwards  had  seen  Jesus  again  and  again,  and  talked 
with  him ;  and  what  he  wrote  as  to  Jesus,  about 
twenty-five  years  later  than  his  last  sight  of  his  Mas 
ter,  is  that  he  was  "  put  to  death  in  the  flesh,  but 
quickened  by  the  Spirit." 

But  was  that  crucified  body  quickened  ?  No  ;  not 
altogether  perhaps.  Though  there  may  probably  have 
been  a  quickening,  by  which  the  mortal  remains  of 
Jesus  may  have  been  affected,  on  his  recall  from 
Hades.  But  was  the  heart  that  had  been  pierced 
healed  again  miraculously  ?  Probably  it  was  not. 

The  body  of  Jesus,  as  it  lay  in  the  tomb,  was  not 
the  body  of  an  ordinary  man.  Says  St.  Paul,  "  All 
flesh  is  not  the  same  flesh,"  and  that  temple  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  which  was  the  body  of  Jesus  had  proba 
bly  been  sublimed  in  such  a  manner  as  that  on  his 
return  from  the  world  of  spirits  into  this  realm  of  na 
ture,  his  body,  on  its  assumption,  became  but  like  that 
thin  robe  which  justly  availed  for  keeping  him  awhile 
within  the  sight  of  his  disciples. 

In  the  Book  of  Ecclesiasticus,  it  is  said  of  Elisha, 
that  "'  after  his  death  his  body  prophesied,"  or  was  an 
outlet  for  spiritual  power.  A  few  months  after  the 
burial  of  Elisha  there  was  war  with  the  Moabites,  "  and 
it  came  to  pass,  as  they  were  burying  a  man,  that,  be 
hold,  they  spied  a  band  of  men ;  and  they  cast  the 
man  into  the  sepulchre  of  Elisha  :  and  when  the  man 
was  let  down,  and  touched  the  bones  of  Elisha,  he  re 
vived  and  stood  upon  his  feet."  Perhaps  the  body  of 
Elisha,  at  the  time  of  his  death,  was  half  ready  for 


468        JESUS  AND  THE  RESURRECTION. 

being  translated,  and  it  may  be  that  after  the  body  was 
dead  there  lingered  in  it  something  of  that  vitalized 
magnetism  which,  by  its  strength,  may  have  been  one 
of  the  conditions  of  that  spiritual  receptiveness,  through 
which,  at  the  will  of  the  Lord,  he  was  a  prophet. 

It  is  certain  that  there  is  a  chemistry  as  to  the  con 
nection  between  the  soul  and  the  body ;  and  it  is 
attested  by  a  thousand  wonderful  facts,  although  so 
little  is  known,  as  yet,  as  to  its  laws. 

Early  in  the  Book  of  Genesis  it  is  to  be  read,  "  And 
Enoch  walked  with  God :  and  he  was  not ;  for  God 
took  him."  According  to  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews, 
the  translation  of  Enoch  was  connected  with  his  faith. 
It  is  conceivable  with  his  long  life  and  walk  with  God, 
that  the  body  of  Enoch  may  have  become  so  ethereal- 
ized,  as  that  his  soul,  on  its  passage  from  earth  to 
heaven,  may  simply  have  parted  from  what  dropped, 
in  a  moment,  into  a  handful  of  common  dust.  And  in 
some  manner  like  this,  probably,  did  the  soul  of  Elijah 
clear  itself  of  nature.  For,  certainly,  it  could  not  have 
been  with  an  ordinary  body  that  Elijah  entered  a 
chariot  of  fire,  and  went  up  to  heaven  in  a  whirl 
wind.  And,  no  doubt,  by  some  such  path  as  that  by 
which  he  vanished,  Elijah  was  present  at  the  trans 
figuration  of  Christ.  But  along  with  Elias,  also, 
Moses  "  appeared  in  glory."  And  it  is  noticeable  that, 
as  to  the  mortal  end  of  Moses,  or  what  went  with  his 
body,  there  was  a  mystery.  "  So  Moses  the  servant 
of  the  Lord  died  there  in  the  land  of  Moab,  according 
to  the  word  of  the  Lord.  And  he  buried  him  in  a 
valley  in  the  land  of  Moab,  over  against  Beth-peor ; 
but  no  man  knoweth  of  his  sepulchre  unto  this  day." 


JESUS   AND   THE   RESURRECTION.  469 

On  the  morning  of  the  resurrection,  probably,  the 
soul  of  Jesus  entered  his  dead  body,  and  then  shook 
from  itself  the  sublimated  dust.  And  so  Jesus  re 
tained  about  him  only  as  much  earthiness  as  would 
hold  his  wounds,  and  enable  him  to  satisfy  people  as 
to  his  personal  actuality  and  his  identity. 

At  the  door  of  the  sepulchre,  while  angels  in  white 
were  inside  of  it,  suddenly  Jesus  was  recognized  by 
Mary,  as  he  stood  near  her.  "  Jesus  saith  unto  her, 
Touch  me  not ;  for  I  am  not  yet  ascended  to  my 
Father."  And  yet  only  eight  days  later  "  saith  he  to 
Thomas,  Reach  hither  thy  finger,  and  behold  my 
hands ;  and  reach  hither  thy  hand,  and  thrust  it 
into  my  side :  and  be  not  faithless,  but  believing." 
These  two  incidents  are  worthy  of  notice,  as  being 
likely,  some  time,  to  suggest  something  as  to  the  chem 
istry  of  the  spiritual  body. 

The  body  which  Thomas  touched  was  that  of  Jesus 
while  he  was  standing  witliinside  of  our  earthly  sphere ; 
and  perhaps  it  may  have  been  capable  of  being  hard 
ened  at  will.  But  also  it  was  the  same  body  in  which 
afterwards  Jesus  "  ascended  up  far  above  all  heavens." 
By  his  resurrection,  Jesus  was  not  merely  an  appari 
tion,  or  a  spirit ;  for  he  was  thereby  clothed  with 
another  nature  than  what  a  phantom  wears.  Said 
Jesus  to  the  disciples,  when  they  were  frightened  at 
his  appearance  among  them,  on  the  first  evening  after 
his  resurrection  :  "  Behold  my  hands  and  my  feet,  that 
it  is  I  myself :  handle  me  and  see  ;  for  a  spirit  hath 
not  flesh  and  bones,  as  ye  see  me  have."  And  yet 
with  that  body  he  could  appear  suddenly  in  a  room, 
the  doors  being  shut. 


470        JESUS  AND  THE  RESURRECTION. 

On  the  morning  of  the  resurrection,  Jesus  was  not 
to  be  touched,  as  not  having  yet  ascended  to  his 
Father ;  but  within  a  few  hours  afterwards  he  was 
even  to  be  handled.  And  thus,  certainly,  he  had  ex 
perienced  some  change  further  than  that  in  the  sepul 
chre,  by  the  marvel  of  which  he  stood  alive,  and  within 
the  sight  and  hearing  of  Mary  Magdalene.  And  some 
further  change  still  than  that  would  seem  to  have  been 
experienced  by  him,  when,  after  his  last  interview 
with  his  apostles,  and  his  last  words  to  them,  on 
Olivet,  "  he  was  taken  up  and  a  cloud  received  him 
out  of  their  sight."  For,  after  this  event,  he  was  seen 
by  Paul  twice,  at  least ;  but  not  under  the  same  con 
ditions  as  before.  For  to  Paul  he  was  visible  only 
through  the  Spirit,  and  in  vision.  And  so,  also,  it 
was  that  he  was  visible  to  Stephen.  When  Stephen 
was  put  on  his  trial,  "  all  that  sat  in  the  council,  look 
ing  steadfastly  on  him,  saw  his  face,  as  it  had  been 
the  face  of  an  angel."  And,  after  his  argument  as  to 
Christ,  when  his  judges  gnashed  on  him  with  their 
teeth,  "  he,  being  full  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  looked  up 
steadfastly  into  heaven,  and  saw  the  glory  of  God, 
and  Jesus  standing  on  the  right  hand  of  God."  0 
wondrous  fact,  about  which  the  more  there  is  which 
is  learned,  the  more  certain  and  wonderful  will  it  be 
come  !  O,  those  triumphant  words  of  Paul  to  Timo 
thy,  as  to  "  the  appearing  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus 
Christ,  who  hath  abolished  death,  and  hath  brought 
life  and  immortality  to  light  through  the  good  news  "  ! 

What,  then,  was  the  resurrection  ?  It  was  the  pas 
sage  of  Jesus  from  the  world  of  spirits  into  heaven, 
through  the  realm  of  nature,  and  especially  by  the 


JESUS  AND   THE  RESURRECTION.  471 

way  of  his  mortal  body.  "  0  death,  where  is  thy 
sting  ?  O  Hades,  where  is  thy  victory  ? " 

But  now  there  are  persons  who  will  say,  "  Why  then 
did  Jesus  not  walk  into  the  judgment-hall,  and  speak 
to  Caiaphas ;  and  why  did  he  not  show  himself  in  the 
market-place ;  and  why  did  he  not  mount  the  steps 
of  the  altar,  to  the  utter  confusion  of  every  enemy  ? " 
But  why  then  does  God  not  confute  his  blasphemers 
with  thunder  and  lightning,  every  day  ?  and  why,  un 
der  high  heaven,  are  not  the  highest  truths  as  to  morals 
and  philosophy  borne  in  irresistibly  upon  all  minds 
alike  ?  And  perhaps  also  Jesus  would  not  have  been 
able,  and  could  not  even  have  wished,  to  show  himself 
to  Caiaphas.  Also  affairs  which  involve  the  higher  laws 
of  the  Spirit  are  not  to  be  summoned  for  examination 
into  the  market-place.  It  is  a  precept  which  has  wide 
and  deep  reasons  behind  it,  spiritually,  "  Give  not  that 
which  is  holy  unto  the  dogs,  neither  cast  ye  your 
pearls  before  swine."  And  the  reasons  even  why  Peter 
saw  Jesus  Christ,  and  those  for  which  Caiaphas  and 
Pilate  did  not  see  him,  would  be  found,  when  spiritu 
ally  considered,  to  corroborate  one  another.  It  is  a 
general  truth,  "  Draw  nigh  to  God  and  he  will  draw 
nigh  to  you."  And  perhaps  something  psychologically 
being  allowed  for,  only  those  who  recognized  Jesus  as 
the  Christ,  or  seeing  him  in  his  humiliation,  were 
capable  of  being  quickened,  so  as  to  see  him,  on  his 
way  through  the  earth  to  his  glory. 

As  to  the  universe,  Jesus,  after  his  resurrection,  was 
in  a  region  intermediate  between  this  world  and  the 
next,  or  rather  he  was  in  a  state  by  which  he  was  free 
of  both  worlds.  He  appeared  among  his  friends  sud- 


472        JESUS  AND  THE  RESURRECTION. 

denly,  by  some  unearthly  way,  and  then  as  suddenly 
he  was  gone.  As  affecting  his  visibility,  there  were 
two  conditions,  of  which  one  was  what  may  be  called 
the  fine  earthiness,  which  he  still  held  about  him  like 
a  veil ;  and  the  other  was  the  Spirit,  and  through  the 
Spirit  some  persons  were  quickened  as  to  their  eyes 
and  ears  spiritually,  so  as  that  they  not  only  saw  and 
heard  Jesus,  but  even  also  angels  attendant  on  him. 

The  body  of  Jesus  after  the  resurrection  was  the 
same  body  as  before  in  the  eye  of  an  angel,  perhaps, 
although  it  had  ceased  to  be  recognized  by  the  law  of 
gravitation,  and  perhaps  might  have  stood  before  Pilate, 
and  never  have  been  seen.  Essentially  and  germinally, 
the  body  which  was  taken  up  into  heaven  was  the 
same  body  which  was  crucified  on  the  cross,  and  the 
same  body  which  the  child  Jesus  had  when  he  "  in 
creased  in  wisdom  and  stature,  and  in  favor  with  God 
and  man."  In  a  grain  of  wheat,  not  as  a  possibility 
merely,  but  as  an  organized  fact,  there  is  latent  "  first 
the  blade,  then  the  ear,  after  that  the  full  corn  in  the 
ear,"  not  visibly  to  a  human  eye,  but  very  curiously  so, 
perhaps,  to  an  angel  by  what  may  be  called  the  spirit 
of  science.  From  the  cross  to  the  sepulchre,  there  was 
earned  the  crucified  body  of  Jesus ;  and  a  seal  was  set 
on  the  door  against  it,  and  a  Roman  guard.  And  that 
body  as  it  was  laid  down  in  the  grave-clothes  was 
never  seen  again. 

Jesus  as  he  was  seen  outside  of  the  sepulchre,  talk 
ing  with  one  and  another  and  walking,  and  visible  also 
to  all  the  apostles  together,  and  to  five  hundred  per 
sons  at  once,  and  to  Paul  also  once  and  again,  in  vision, 
—  Jesus  crucified,  dead,  buried,  and  risen,  is  the  original 


JESUS  AND  THE  KESURRECTION.        473 

of  that  apostle's  doctrine  as  to  the  resurrection,  "  It  is 
sown  a  natural  body,  it  is  raised  a  spiritual  body." 

And  why  ?  "Why  at  all  should  it  be  thought  a  thing 
incredible  that  God  should  raise  the  dead,  and  do  so 
at  that  time  especially  ?  0  fulness  of  the  time  !  0  ex 
tremity  of  human  want,  when  the  whole  creation  was 
groaning  and  travailing  in  pain  together !  0  the  ear 
nestness  of  that  expectation  which  everywhere  was 
waiting  in  the  truest  souls,  for  the  manifestation  of  the 
sons  of  God  !  And  age  after  age,  how  many  had 
prayed  these  words,  in  the  faith  of  something  great, 
"  Lord,  what  is  man,  that  thou  takest  knowledge  of 
him  ?  or  the  son  of  man,  that  thou  makest  account  of 
him  ?  Man  is  like  to  vanity :  his  days  are  as  a  shadow 
that  passeth  away.  Bow  thy  heavens,  0  Lord,  and 
come  down :  touch  the  mountains,  and  they  shall 
smoke." 

And  towards  that  new  tomb  which  was  hewn  out 
of  the  rock,  truly  the  heavens  were  bowed  down,  in 
what  wras  "the  fulness  of  the  time."  And  at  that 
sepulchre,  when  radiant  angels  emerged  withinside  of 
it,  it  was  because  the  way  had  been  opened  for  them, 
from  above,  by  the  Spirit.  The  strength  by  which 
"  was  rolled  back  the  stone  from  the  door,"  the  earth 
quake,  and  the  quaking  of  the  keepers  simply  were 
signs  of  there  being  present  "  power  from  on  high." 

Humanly  speaking,  the  Father  Everlasting  was 
about 'to  raise  his  Son  from  the  dead,  and  to  show  him 
openly.  But  as  under  high  heaven,  the  prophecies  of 
the  Spirit  as  to  Jesus  were  then  about  to  be  made 
good,  by  the  Spirit  itself.  The  wrath  of  a  nation  had 
hurried  on  to  a  point,  whence  the  highest  praise  as  to 


474        JESUS  AND  THE  RESURRECTION. 

God  was  to  begin.  And  the  words  of  Peter  are  exact 
when  he  writes  of  Christ  as  having  been  "put  to 
death  in  the  flesh,  but  quickened  by  the  Spirit." 

But  when  Christ  "  ascended  up  on  high/'  where  did 
he  go  ?  For  the  firmament,  scientifically,  now  is 
nowhere.  Where  then  was  it,  that  Christ  Jesus  \vent  ? 
"  He  was  received  up  into  heaven,"  just  as  it  is  writ 
ten.  But  heaven  has  nothing  to  do  with  any  firma 
ment,  whether  phenomenal  or  real.  And  it  is  to  be 
looked  for,  only  in  such  a  direction  as  that  by  which 
Christ  with  ascending  "  took  captivity  captive."  Jesus 
said  to  Nicodenms,  "  If  I  have  told  you  earthly  things, 
and  ye  believe  not,  how  shall  ye  believe  if  I  tell  you 
of  heavenly  things  ?  And  no  man  hath  ascended  up 
to  heaven,  but  he  that  came  down  from  heaven,  even 
the  Son  of  man,  which  is  in  heaven."  Now,  what  does 
this  mean,  but  that  Jesus,  as  to  his  spirit  and  spiritual 
connections,  was  in  heaven,  while  yet  with  his  bodily 
tongue  he  was  talking  with  Nicodemus  in  Jerusalem  ? 

And  there  is  nobody  open  to  the  Spirit  but  can  feel 
how  this  may  be.  Because  with  myself,  it  is  certain 
that  my  highest  mood,  spiritually,  differs  from  my 
badness  far  more  than  any  Change  which  could  happen 
for  me,  by  the  widest  locomotion,  or  even  by  the  death 
of  my  body.  But  it  is  said,  "  0,  but  heaven  and  earth 
are  so  different !  For,  as  to  our  earthly  lives,  there  are 
fixed  points,  by  which  to  think ;  but  as  to  heaven,  who 
knows  about  it,  any  way,  except  by  faith  ? "  Now,  that 
faith  which  is  not  an  increment,  spiritually  of  knowl 
edge,  is  as  worthless  as  ignorance  itself.  And  this  is 
true  even  as  to  the  resurrection  of  Jesus.  Faith  is 
spiritual  believing.  It  is  the  persuasion  of  a  man  as 


JESUS  AND  THE  RESURRECTION.        475 

to  things  beyond  his  reach  intellectually,  because  of 
what  he  is  himself,  or  of  what  he  knows,  or  otherwise 
feels.  And  this  statement  agrees  with  faith,  as  being 
possible,  even  as  a  gift  of  the  Spirit.  For  the  Spirit 
reaches  persons  only  as  they  are  open  to  it.  The 
wicked  Ahab  could  never  have  become  St.  Paul.  But 
Saul  the  persecutor  was  in  a  ripe  state  of  knowl 
edge,  theologically,  when  he  was  converted  in  a  mo 
ment  by  a  voice  from  heaven.  And,  no  doubt,  "  the 
pricks"  against  which  Paul  was  finding  it  hard  to 
kick  were  the  misgivings  which  he  was  having,  as  to 
its  being  possible,  for  many  reasons,  that  Jesus  of  Naz 
areth  might  really  be  the  Messiah,  and  the  fulfilment 
of  prophecy,  and  "  the  desire  of  all  nations."  And  so, 
in  a  moment  almost,  he  became  another  man  than  he 
had  been,  with  hearing  a  voice  from  out  of  a  blinding 
glory  say,  "  I  am  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  whom  thou  per- 
secutest."  And  thenceforth  with  him,  every  age  in  the 
past,  up  to  Abraham,  was  a  witness  for  Christ,  as  also 
was  the  temple,  and  the  veil  of  the  temple  too,  and 
the  order  as  to  sacrifices,  and  the  law  as  to  clean  and 
unclean,  and  the  angel  of  the  covenant,  and  every  other 
angel  that  ever  stooped  on  this  earth  for  a  visit.  And 
on  hearing  the  Master  speaking  from  above,  and  from 
out  of  glory,  at  once  Paul  began  to  experience  that 
change,  a  Hebrew  of  the  Hebrews  though  he  was, 
through  which  it  seemed  to  him,  with  all  the  nations 
of  the  earth  in  full  view,  that  "the  law  was  our 
schoolmaster  to  bring  us  unto  Christ,  that  we  might 
be  justified  by  faith." 

Definite  departments,  those  of  nature  and  spirit  as  to 
man !     For  some  purposes,  at  least,  it  is  certain  that 


476        JESUS  AND  THE  RESURRECTION. 

the  flowering  of  nature  is  what  spirit  begins  from. 
And  it  is  true,  no  doubt,  as  to  the  resurrection'  of 
Jesus,  that  even  natural  science,  as  an  unbeliever, 
has  got  to  yield  its  testimony,  when  the  time  shall 
have  come.  And  that  time  will  be  when  some  per 
son  shall  be  wise  with  the  wisdom  of  this  present  age, 
and  childlike  as  towards  the  Spirit  of  the  Universe, 
and  God  over  all. 

Notoriously,  this  earth  hangs  upon  the  sun ;  and 
should  it  then  be  an  improbable  thing,  that  there 
may  be  a  "  sun  of  righteousness  "  in  the  light  of  which, 
and  dependent  on  which,  for  their  best,  our  souls  may 
have  their  being?  Those  planets,  which  are  of  the 
sisterhood  of  our  earth,  as  to  the  sun,  affect  one 
another  in  their  orbits  ;  and  is  it  then  a  thing  too 
foreign  for  thought  that,  spiritually,  we  human  be 
ings  may  be  rightly  influenced  as  to  our  lives,  by 
what,  as  to  origin,  is  "  far  above  all  principality  and 
power  "  ?  Every  atom  in  this  earth  of  ours,  and  in 
every  human  body,  is  sensitive  as  to  the  course  of  a 
comet;  and  should  it  then  really  be  inconceivable 
that,  with  the  Father  of  lights,  there  may  be  thoughts 
as  to  man,  which  may  have  their  earthly  expression 
at  such  times  as  those  wherein,  historically,  and  so 
cially,  and  spiritually,  mankind  is  as  though  it  were 
reaching  up  towards  heaven,  in  blind  entreaty,  at  a 
great  crisis  ?  And  is  it,  then,  anything  incredible  ? 
is  it  even  a  thing  improbable  ?  and  is  it  not  actually, 
as  to  heaven  and  earth,  and  as  to  all  history,  and  as  to 
science  also,  at  its  surest,  a  probability,  which  is  al 
most  like  certainty  itself,  that  the  condescension  of 
the  Highest,  as  to  human  need  at  its  uttermost,  should 
have  eventuated  in  Jesus  and  the  resurrection  ? 


JESUS  AND  THE  RESURRECTION.        477 

Soul  and  body  is  what  we  human  beings  are.  And 
bodily,  there  is  nothing  wonderful,  which  can  be  dis 
covered  for  us,  as  to  our  connection  with  the  sun  or 
the  moon  or  the  stars,  or  with  those  laws  of  nature 
which  concern  this  earth  especially ;  but  tenfold  more 
than  that,  and  a  hundred-fold,  we  ought  to  be  ready  to 
believe  as  to  our  poor  souls,  struggling  upwards  out  of 
sin  and  spiritual  darkness.  And,  indeed,  as  countless 
almost  as  the  rays  of  the  sun  which  are  called  light, 
must  be  the  connections  which  there  are  between 
heaven  and  earth,  spiritually,  because  of  God,  "  of 
whom  the  whole  family  in  heaven  arid  earth  is 
named." 

And  now  as  to  this  earth,  and  all  earthiness, 
"Thanks  be  to  God,  which  giveth  us  the  victory 
through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 


THE   CHUECH  AND   THE  SPIRIT. 

THE  resurrection  of  Jesus,  or  his  quickening  as  to 
the  body,  was  not  a  disconnected  fact.  It  had 
been  ordained  from  before  Abraham ;  and  spiritually, 
it  had  been  intimated  during  many  ages  ;  and  expressly 
it  had  been  foretold  in  the  utterances  of  Jesus  himself. 
And  it  was  the  consummation  of  Judaism,  as  to  its 
purpose,  that,  in  connection  with  it,  Christ  should  have 
been  "  put  to  death  in  the  flesh,  but  quickened  by  the 
Spirit."  On  that  evening  of  the  first  day,  when  Jesus 
suddenly  appeared  among  the  eleven,  after  his  resur 
rection,  he  must  have  said  much  as  to  the  Scriptures, 
which  is  quite  outside  of  our  ability  even  to  conjec 
ture  about,  for  want  of  spiritual  understanding.  But 
to  those  eleven  astonished  apostles  Jesus  said,  "  These 
are  the  words  which  I  spake  unto  you,  while  I  was  yet 
with  you,  that  all  things  must  be  fulfilled  which  were 
written  in  the  law  of  Moses,  and  in  the  prophets,  and 
in  the  Psalms,  concerning  me.  Then  opened  he  their 
understanding  that  they  might  understand  the  Scrip 
tures,  and  said  unto  them,  Thus  it  is  written,  and  thus 
it  behoved  Christ  to  suffer,  and  to  rise  from  the  dead 
the  third  day.  And  that  repentance  and  remission  of 
sins  should  be  preached  in  his  name  among  all  nations, 
beginning  at  Jerusalem.  And  ye  are  witnesses  of 
these  things."  And  afterwards  Jesus  said,  "  Behold,  I 


THE   CHURCH  AND   THE   SPIRIT.  479 

send  the  promise  of  my  Father  upon  you :  but  tarry 
ye  in  the  city  of  Jerusalem,  until  ye  be  endued  with 
power  from  on  high." 

That  promise  of  the  Father,  which  was  revealed  to 
the  world  through  the  consciousness  of  Jesus  Christ ; 
that  prophesying  of  the  Spirit,  as  to  its  course,  and 
which  indeed  is  characteristic  of  it,  was  what  was 
verified,  at  the  day  of  Pentecost.  But  not  to  Jesus 
only  had  that  wonderful  event  been  foreshown,  for 
also  as  to  its  certainty  there  had  been  indications  from 
the  Spirit,  through  the  prophets,  from  long  ages  before. 
And  so  it  was  that  Peter  said  to  an  assemblage  of  the 
Jews  on  the  day  of  Pentecost,  "  Therefore  let  all  the 
house  of  Israel  know  assuredly,  that  God  hath  made 
that  same  Jesus,  whom  ye  have  crucified,  both  Lord 
and  Christ."  And  his  particular  citation  as  to  proph 
ecy  is,  "  that  which  was  spoken  by  the  prophet  Joel ; 
and  it  shall  come  to  pass  in  the  last  days,  saith  God, 
I  will  pour  out  of  my  Spirit  upon  all  flesh  :  and  your 
sons  and  your  daughters  shall  prophesy,  and  your  young 
men  shall  see  visions,  and  your  old  men  shall  dream 
dreams  ;  and  on  my  servants  and  on  my  handmaidens 
I  will  pour  out  in  those  days  of  my  Spirit ;  and  they 
shall  prophesy."  And  of  this  prophecy  thus  cited  by 
St.  Peter,  the  grandest  instances  are  the  Apostle  to  the 
Gentiles,  and  Ananias  by  whom  he  was  cured  of  his 
blindness,  and  Peter  himself  along  with  Cornelius,  that 
centurion  of  the  Italian  band.  And  indeed,  it  was 
through  these  four  men,  and  what  they  experienced  in 
vision,  or  during  entrancement  by  the  Spirit,  that  the 
Gospel  got  itself  extended  as  an  offer  to  the  Gentiles,  and 
to  people  everywhere,  who  were  neither  Pharisees  nor 


480  THE   CHURCH   AND   THE   SPIRIT. 

Saclducees,  nor  even  Galileans.  Religiously,  and  still 
more  ecclesiastically,  this  is  what  has  never  perhaps  been 
sufficiently  considered.  And  for  persons  of  competent 
understanding,  it  would  seem  to  imply  what  might  be 
the  death  of  theological  dogmatism. 

Paul  was  journeying  to  Damascus,  with  letters  from 
the  high-priest,  for  persecuting  the  disciples  of  Jesus, 
when  "  suddenly  there  sinned  round  about  him  a  light 
from  heaven :  and  he  fell  to  the  earth,  and  heard  a 
voice  saying  unto  him,  Saul,  Saul,  why  persecutest  thou 
me  ?  And  he  said,  Who  art  thou,  Lord  ?  And  the  Lord 
said,  I  am  Jesus,  whom  thou  persecutest :  it  is  hard 
for  thee  to  kick  against  the  pricks.  And  he,  trembling 
and  astonished,  said,  Lord,  what  wilt  thou  have  me  to 
do  ?  And  the  Lord  said  unto  him,  Arise,  and  go  into 
the  city,  and  it  shall  be  told  thee  what  thou  must  do." 
And  at  Damascus  there  was  a  man  called  Ananias, 
and  in  a  vision,  just  as  Paul  had  heard  the  Lord,  he 
also  heard  him  directing  him  as  to  Paul,  and  where 
he  was  to  be  found,  and  saying,  "  Go  thy  way  :  for  he 
is  a  chosen  vessel  unto  me,  to  bear  my  name  before  the 
Gentiles,  and  kings,  and  the  children  of  Israel.  For  I 
will  show  him  how  great  things  he  must  suffer  for  my 
name's  sake.  And  Ananias  went  his  way,  and  entered 
into  the  house  ;  and  putting  his  hands  on  him,  said, 
Brother  Saul,  the  Lord,  even  Jesus,  that  appeared  unto 
thee  in  the  way  as  thou  earnest,  hath  sent  me,  that 
thou  mightest  receive  thy  sight,  and  be  filled  with  the 
Holy  Ghost.  And  immediately  there  fell  from  his 
eyes  as  it  had  been  scales ;  and  he  received  sight  forth 
with!,  and  arose,  and  was  baptized." 

Simultaneously  with  the  events  just  narrated,  would 


THE   CHURCH  AND   THE   SPIRIT.  481 

seem  to  have  been  the  experiences  of  Paul  and  Cor 
nelius.  In  Caesarea,  Cornelius  was  an  officer  in  a 
Roman  legion ;  but  yet  he  was  a  Gentile  believer  in 
the  God  of  Abraham  ;  and  he  had  a  vision,  in  which 
an  angel  directed  him  to  send  to  Peter,  and  told  him 
also  of  the  town  and  the  house  where  the  Apostle 
was  to  be  found.  Arid  on  this  angelic  impulse,  three 
! persons  were  sent  with  a  message  from  a  quarter, 
which,  for  a  Jew,  was  unclean.  How,  then,  was  it 
possibly  to  be  received  by  Peter  ?  But  to  Peter  also, 
against  the  arrival  of  the  messengers,  there  was  a 
vision  vouchsafed,  wherein  he  saw  what  was  curiously 
significant;  and  wherein  also  thrice  it  was  said,  "What 
God  hath  cleansed,  that  call  not  thou  common."  0 
wonderful  history  of  that  time  when,  through  the 
Spirit,  heaven  was  so  close  to  this  earth  !  For  when 
Peter  and  Cornelius  met,  the  Jews  'in  the  company 
were  astonished,  "because  that  on  the  Gentiles  also 
was  poured  out  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  For  they 
heard  them  speak  with  tongues,  and  magnify  God." 

What  is  time  on  this  earth,  except  as  man  is  con 
cerned  with  it?  And  so  it  was  well  because  of  the 
coming  of  Christ,  that  time  as  to  men  should  have  be 
gun  to  count  the  years  afresh.  "  Power  from  on  high," 
was  the  promise  of  Christ  as  to  this  earth,  as  he  left  it, 
by  rising.  And  when  it  arrived  it  was  power,  adapted 
as  to  man,  by  the  fatherhood  of  God.  For,  indeed,  it 
was  power  of  the  same  origin  as  that,  with  the  move 
ment  of  which,  a  world  without  form  and  void  began 
to  take  shape,  and  grow,  and  bring  forth,  and  become 
this  surrounding  nature.  But  it  is  said,  "  0,  angels 
and  visions  are  so  different  from  stages  of  develop- 

21  EE 


482  THE   CHUKCH   AND   THE   SPIRIT. 

ment,  or  from  the  path  of  nature,  as  she  feels  her  way 
upwards  I "  Is  man  then  properly  to  be  catalogued 
along  with  the  whale  or  the  elephant  ?  Also  if  ever 
we  men  are  to  be  spirits,  why  should  we  not  be  spirit 
ually  met  to-day  ?  And  not  the  Gospel  only,  nor  yet 
along  with  it,  the  philosophy  also  of  history,  but  even 
material  science  itself,  by  the  way  of  analogy,  would 
demand  of  men,  a  state  of  expectancy  as  to  the  Highest, 
and  as  to  "  power  from  on  high." 

And  as  mediator  between  God  and  mankind,  and  as 
foretold  by  prophets,  and  as  trusted  in  to-day,  what  is 
Jesus  Christ,  but  an  advance  in  the  human  race,  a  later 
Adam,  who  was  made  "  a  quickening  spirit "  ? 

In  spiritual  dafkness,  what  bewilderment  there  has 
been  as  to  the  day  of  Pentecost !  And  as  to  that  day, 
very  strangely,  some  time,  on  reading,  will  many  things 
seem,  which  have  been  written  by  persons  zealous  as 
to  the  letter  of  the  Scripture,  and  by  others,  also,  who 
have  thought  as  to  human  nature,  that  the  limitation 
as  to  experience,  of  any  man,  anywhere  and  in  any  age, 
should  be  accounted  as  the  exact  measure  of  human 
susceptibility,  as  to  the  Sun  of  righteousness,  during 
all  time.  For  that  outpouring  of  the  Spirit  was  sim 
ply  the  quickening  of  men  as  to  their  immortal  facul 
ties  and  connections,  and  as  to  some  ways,  which  are 
latent  mostly,  by  which  human  beings  are  "  members 
one  of  another,"  whether  in  the  flesh,  or  out  of  it.  And 
that  "  manifestation  of  the  Spirit "  was  "  power  from  on 
high  "  reaching  earth,  through  the  "  one  Mediator  be 
tween  God  and  men,  the  man  Christ  Jesus." 

But  say  some  persons,  "  How  was  that,  and  how 
possibly  could  it  have  been  ?  O  that  we  could  heart- 


THE   CHURCH   AND   THE   SPIRIT.  483 

ily  think  it ! "  And  is  this  present  a  day  for  such  a 
difficulty  as  that  ?  In  a  few  years,  it  will  be  possible 
for  any  common  man  to  send  his  word  round  the  earth 
in  a  moment  almost,  and  even  almost  to  converse 
simultaneously  with  all  the  chief  cities  of  the  world. 
Surely,  for  a  person  of  ordinary  intelligence,  a  tele 
graph-office  ought  to  be  a  humble  but  sufficient  hint 
as  to  the  manner  in  which,  through  the  Spirit,  all  souls, 
everywhere,  lie  open  to  God  and  his  angels. 

Under  high  heaven,  everywhere,  there  is  the  Spirit 
of  God ;  but  rocks  and  graven  images  are  not  as  sus 
ceptible  of  it  as  human  beings  ;  nor  yet  is  a  cannibal 
open  to  it,  in  the  same  degree,  as  an  ascetic.  And  what 
Christianity  means  is  that  a  man  living  in  the  spirit 
of  Jesus  Christ,  on  this  earth  may  hope  and  be  sure, 
that  in  some  way  his  soul  will  be  reached  by  "  the 
Comforter  which  is  the  Holy  Ghost."  And  the  book 
of  Acts,  as  the  history  of  the  Spirit,  in  its  connection 
with  the  first  age  of  the  Christian  Church,  is  what  any 
man  may  trust  to,  as  manifesting  the  condescension 
and  love  with  which  he  himself  is  regarded  as  he  goes 
to  church  as  a  Christian,  or  collects  himself  for  medi 
tation  in  his  closet. 

At  the  conversion  of  the  Apostle  to  the  Gentiles,  I 
myself  was  contemplated  in  the  foreknowledge  of  God, 
as  much  as  Saul,  "  a  Jew  of  Tarsus,  a  city  in  Cilicia,  a 
citizen  of  no  mean  city."  And  it  was  by  the  same 
way  as  that  by  which  the  promise  looked  when  it 
said,  as  to  Abraham,  "  In  thee  shall  all  families  of  the 
earth  be  blessed."  And  the  vision,  which  Peter  had 
on  the  seaside,  at  Joppa,  was  vouchsafed  for  me,  just 
as  certainly  as  it  was  in  favor  of  a  Eoman  centurion, 


484  THE   CHURCH   AND   THE   SPIRIT. 

at  Ca3sarea.  And  at  Athens,  on  the  hill  of  Mars,  when 
Paul  addressed  the  philosophers,  Epicureans,  and 
Stoics,  as  to  God  and  the  resurrection,  I  myself  was 
preached  unto,  by  the  Spirit.  Indeed,  every  miracle 
which  is  recorded  in  the  hook  of  Acts  is  connected 
with  that  Gospel,  which  is  the  life  of  my  life,  and 
which  has  been  like  a  light  shining  in  darkness,  these 
many  hundreds  of  years.  And  just  as  being  of  faith, 
I  am  "  blessed  with  faithful  Abraham,"  so  also  was  it 
a  matter  of  as  great  concern  for  me  as  it  was  for  any 
Roman,  when  Paul,  at  Rome,  "  dwelt  two  whole  years 
in  his  own  hired  house,  and  received  all  that  came  in 
unto  him,  preaching  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  teach 
ing  those  things  which  concern  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 
Jew  and  Gentile  became  one  in  Christ.  "  For  through 
him  we  both  have  access  by  one  Spirit  unto  the  Fa 
ther.  Now,  therefore,  ye  are  no  more  strangers  and  for 
eigners,  but  fellow-citizens  with  the  saints,  and  of  the 
household  of  God  ;  and  are  built  upon  the  foundation 
of  the  apostles  and  prophets,  Jesus  Christ  himself  be 
ing  the  chief  corner-stone  ;  in  whom  all  the  building 
fitly  framed  together  groweth  unto  a  holy  temple  in 
the  Lord  :  in  whom  ye  also  are  builded  together  for  a 
habitation  of  God  through  the  Spirit." 

The  preceding  statement  concerns  the  origin  of 
Christianity ;  for  the  Church  did  not  grow,  as  a  sect 
grows  to-day.  It  was  not  a  human  undertaking,  and 
its  leadership  was  unearthly  and  strange,  for  it  chose 
as  its  instruments  "  the  foolish  things  of  the  world." 
What  an  outburst  of  soul  those  words  of  Paul  are ! 
A  Jew  of  Tarsus,  and  a  few  men  in  Judaea,  fishermen 
mostly,  and  calling  themselves  apostles,  were  opposed 


THE   CHURCH   AND   THE   SPIRIT. 

to  Jerusalem  and  the  temple  and  the  priesthood, 
and  to  the  Roman  Empire,  and  to  Paganism,  every 
where  with  its  thousands  of  temples.  "  And  base 
things  of  the  world,  and  things  which,  are  despised, 
hath  God  chosen,  yea,  and  things  which  are  not,  to 
bring  to  naught  things  that  are ;  that  no  flesh  should 
glory  in  his  presence."  It  would  seem,  tone  and  style 
being  considered,  and  time  and  place,  that  never  possi 
bly  could  those  words  have  been  written  by  Paul  un 
less  by  inspiration  from  that  Spirit,  which  is  from 
everlasting  to  everlasting,  and  which  can  choose  an 
earthen  vessel,  wherewith  to  demolish  a  kingdom. 
The  early  Church  was  quickened  in  the  world  by  the 
Spirit :  and  visions,  angels,  and  prophets  were  agencies 
through  which  it  was  acted  upon.  The  Holy  Ghost 
was  advice,  and  courage,  and  inspiration ;  and  it  was 
waited  for  implicitly. 

Just  before  Jesus  was  taken  up,  he  commanded  the 
Apostles  not  to  leave  Jerusalem,  but  to  wait,  and  said, 
"  Ye  shall  receive  power,  after  that  the  Holy  Ghost  is 
come  upon  you:  and  ye  shall  be  witnesses  unto  me 
both  in  Jerusalem,  and  in  all  Judsea,  and  in  Samaria, 
and  unto  the  uttermost  part  of  the  earth."  And  while 
they  were  all  waiting  together  in  one  place,  "  suddenly 
there  came  a  sound  from  heaven  as  of  a  rushing  mighty 
wind,  and  it  filled  all  the  house  where  they  were  sit 
ting.  And  there  were  seen  tongues  flashing  about, 
like  as  of  fire,  and  it  rested  upon  every  one  of  them, 
and  they  were  all  filled  with  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  be 
gan  to  speak  with  other  tongues,  as  the  Spirit  gave  them 
utterance."  And  so  the  Apostles  and  others  became 
"  lively  oracles  "  and  instruments  of  the  Spirit.  Be- 


486 


THE   CHURCH  AND   THE   SPIRIT. 


cause  of  a  miracle  at  the  gate  of  the  temple,  which 
was  called  Beautiful,  Peter  and  James  were  placed  as 
criminals  before  the  high-priest.  And  then  what  Christ 
had  said  came  true,  "  But  when  they  shall  lead  you, 
and  deliver  you  up,  take  no  thought  beforehand  what 
ye  shall  speak,  neither  do  ye  premeditate :  but  whatso 
ever  shall  be  given  you  in  that  hour,  that  speak  ye: 
for  it  is  not  ye  that  speak,  but  the  Holy  Ghost."  "  And 
when  they  had  set  them  in  the  midst,  they  asked,  By 
what  power  or  by  what  name  have  ye  done  this  ? "  and, 
just  as  had  been  foretold,  the  answer  whicli  came  was 
from  "  Peter,  filled  with  the  Holv  Ghost."  On  bein# 

"  O 

discharged,  Peter  and  John  joined  their  friends  imme 
diately.  "  And  when  they  had  prayed,  the  place  was 
shaken  where  they  were  assembled  together  ;  and  they 
were  all  filled  with  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  they  spake  the 
word  of  God  with  boldness."  Ten  years  after  this  last 
incident,  Peter  lay  in  prison,  between  two  keepers  ;  and 
unceasing  prayer  was  made  for  him  by  the  Church. 
"And  behold,  the  angel  of  the  Lord  came  upon  him, 
and  a  light  shined  in  the  prison :  and  he  smote  Peter 
on  the  side,  and  raised  him  up,  saying,  Arise,  go 
quickly,  and  his  chains  fell  off  from  his  hands." 

What  happened  to  Philip  was  a  curious  instance  of 
the  manner  in  which  men  were  actuated  by  the  Spirit. 
He  was  at  the  city  of  Samaria.  "  And  the  angel  of  the 
Lord  spake  unto  Philip,  saying,  Arise,  and  go  toward 
the  south  unto  the  way  that  goeth  down  from  Jerusa 
lem  unto  Gaza."  And  as  he  went,  he  met  a  man  who 
had  been  at  Jerusalem  to  worship ;  and  who  proved  to 
be  "  of  great  authority  under  Candace,  queen  of  the 
Ethiopians."  He  "was  returning,  and,  sitting  in  his 


THE   CHURCH   AND   THE   SPIRIT.  487 

chariot,  read  Esaias  the  prophet.  Then  the  Spirit  said 
unto  Philip,  Go  near,  and  join  thyself  to  this  chariot." 
At  the  end  of  the  conference,  the  Ethiopian  "  answered 
and  said,  I  believe  that  Jesus  Christ  is  the  Son  of  God. 
And  he  commanded  the  chariot  to  stand  still :  and  they 
went  down  both  into  the  water,  both  Philip  and  the 
eunuch  ;  and  he  baptized  him.  And  when  they  were 
come  up  out  of  the  water,  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  caught 
away  Philip,  that  the  eunuch  saw  him  no  more :  and 
he  went  on  his  way  rejoicing.  But  Philip  was  found 
at  Azotus."  This  was  an  interposition  by  the  Holy 
Ghost,  with  which,  probably,  a  kingdom  was  concerned. 
And  it  was  an  amazing  discovery  made,  as  to  Ethio 
pia,  in  these  latter  times,  by  adventurous  travellers, 
that  it  was  a  country  which  was  Christian,  and  which, 
also,  had  churches. 

But  we  modern  Christians,  ecclesiastically  derive 
from  St.  Paul,  the  Apostle  to  the  Gentiles,  and  it  was 
with  a  view  to  us  all  that  Paul  was  such  a  manifes 
tation  of  the  Spirit  as  he  was,  and  that  he  was  also 
himself  such  a  wonderful  interpreter,  as  to  the  Spirit. 
Peter,  James,  and  Jude,  and  almost  even  John,  with 
the  rest  of  the  apostles,  are  like  nothing,  in  comparison 
with  Paul,  as  to  the  philosophy  of  revelation,  although 
he  called  himself,  as  perhaps  he  may  have  been,  in 
some  ways,  "the  least  of  the  Apostles." 

As  to  Christianity,  Paul  wrote  to  the  Galatians, 
"  It  pleased  God,  who  separated  me  from  my  mother's 
womb,  and  called  me  by  his  grace,  to  reveal  his  Son  in 
me."  And  his  start  as  an  Apostle  was  thus.  At  Anti- 
och,  in  the  church,  there  were  prophets ;  and  "  as  they 
ministered  to  the  Lord,  and  fasted,  the  Holy  Ghost 


488  THE   CHURCH  AND   THE   SPIRIT, 

said,  Separate  me  Barnabas  and  Saul  for  the  work 
whereunto  I  have  called  them."  It  should  be  noticed, 
that  it  was  by  the  speech  of  these  prophets,  in  the 
church,  that  the  Holy  Ghost  had  its  utterance.  And 
so  it  was,  that  Paul  was  started  as  an  Apostle  to  the 
Gentiles.  And  always  afterwards,  there  was  an  open 
ing  over  him,  from  heaven.  He  went  through  Phry- 
gia  and  about  Galatia,  but  was  "  forbidden  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  to  preach  the  word  in  Asia " ;  and  when  he 
wished  to  go  into  Bithynia,  it  was  not  what  "  the  Spirit 
suffered."  Soon  afterwards  "  a  vision  appeared  to  Paul 
in  the  night;  there  stood  a  man  of  Macedonia,  and 
prayed  him,  saying,  Come  over  into  Macedonia,  and 
help  us.  And  after  he  had  seen  the  vision,  immedi 
ately  we  endeavored  to  go  into  Macedonia,  assuredly 
gathering  that  the  Lord  had  called  us  for  to  preach  the 
gospel  unto  them."  A  year  after  this,  Paul  was  at 
Athens,  and  by  a  few  words  of  his  on  the  hill  of  Mars, 
Plato  and  Epicurus  were  surpassed.  From  Athens  he 
went  to  Corinth,  where  he  was  rejected  by  most  of  the 
Jews.  And  in  that  city,  he  lodged  with  a  man  whose 
house  was  close  to  the  synagogue.  "  Then  spake  the 
Lord  to  Paul  in  the  night  by  a  vision,  Be  not  afraid, 
but  speak,  and  hold  not  thy  peace  ;  for  I  am  with  thee, 
and  no  man  shall  set  on  thee  to  hurt  thee :  for  I  have 
much  people  in  this  city."  In  connection  with  this 
vision,  it  is  well  to  remember  how  famous  the  name 
of  Corinth  has  been  ever  since,  because  of  the  "  mani 
festation  of  the  Spirit "  in  the  church  there,  and  as  to 
which  Paul  wrote.  After  some  five  or  six  years,  Paul 
was  at  Miletus,  whence  he  sent  for  the  elders  of  the 
church  at  Ephesus ;  because  he  was  feeling  himself 


THE  CHURCH  AND   THE   SPIRIT.  489 

hedged  in  upon  a  road,  from  which  he  could  not  hold 
back,  and  because  of  which  "  they  should  see  his  face 
no  more."  He  reviewed  his  life  amongst  them ;  and  he 
exhorted  them ;  and  he  prayed  with  them.  And  a  very 
affecting  time  it  was.  "  And  now,  behold,  I  go  bound 
in  the  spirit  unto  Jerusalem,  not  knowing  the  tilings 
that  shall  befall  me  there :  save  that  the  Holy  Ghost 
witnesseth  in  every  city,  saying  that  bonds  and  afflic 
tions  abide  me."  At  Jerusalem,  the  high-priest  Anani 
as  was  awaiting  him ;  and  also  the  Lord,  in  a  vision  ;  and 
at  Malta,  a  shipwreck  was  about  to  be  his  experience. 

Paul  had  advanced  to  Cassarea,  when  there  hap 
pened  a  curious  incident,  as  to  the  manner  in  which 
the  Holy  Ghost  would  sometimes  express  itself.  "  And 
as  we  tarried  there  many  days,  there  came  down  from 
Juda?a  a  certain  prophet,  named  Agabus.  And  when 
he  was  come  unto  us,  he  took  Paul's  girdle,  and  bound 
his  own  hands  and  feet,  and  said,  Thus  saith  the  Holy 
Ghost,  so  shall  the  Jews  at  Jerusalem  bind  the  man 
that  owneth  this  girdle,  and  shall  deliver  him  into  the 
hands  of  the  Gentiles."  On  the  stairs  of  the  castle,  at 
Jerusalem,  Paul  though  in  custody,  had  leave  to  speak, 
which  he  did  in  Hebrew.  And  he  told  of  the  manner 
of  his  conversion  at  Damascus,  and  of  his  hearing 
Jesus  speak,  and  also  of  his  return  afterwards  to  Je 
rusalem,  where  he  both  saw  Christ  and  heard  him. 
"And  it  came  to  pass,  that,  when  I  was  come  again  to 
Jerusalem,  even  while  I  prayed  in  the  temple,  I  was 
in  a  trance  ;  and  saw  him  saying  unto  me,  Make  haste, 
and  get  thee  quickly  out  of  Jerusalem :  for  they  will 
not  receive  thy  testimony  concerning  me.  And  I  said, 
Lord,  they  know  that  I  imprisoned  and  beat  in  every 
21* 


490  THE   CHURCH  AND   THE   SPIRIT. 

synagogue  them  that  believed  on  thee  :  and  when  the 
blood  of  thy  martyr  Stephen  was  shed,  I  also  was 
standing  by,  and  consenting  unto  his  death,  arid  kept 
the  raiment  of  them  that  slew  him.  And  he  said  unto 
me,  Depart ;  for  I  will  send  thee  far  hence  unto  the 
Gentiles."  By  these  words,  then  and  on  the  next  day, 
the  Jews  were  greatly  enraged.  "And  when  there 
arose  a  great  dissension,  the  chief  captain,  fearing  lest 
Paul  should  have  been  pulled  in  pieces  of  them,  com 
manded  the.  soldiers  to  go  down,  and  to  take  him  by 
force  from  among  them,  and  to  bring  him  into  the 
castle.  And  the  night  following  the  Lord  stood  by 
him,  aijd  said,  Be  of  good  cheer,  Paul ;  for  as  thou 
hast  testified  of  me  in  Jerusalem,  so  must  thou  bear 
witness  also  at  Eome."  On  the  voyage  to  Italy,  the 
vessel  in  which  he  was  embarked,  was  in  great  danger 
for  a  long  time.  But  said  Paul,  "  There  stood  by  me 
this  night  the  angel  of  God,  whose  I  am,  and  whom  I 
serve,  saying,  Fear  not,  Paul ;  thou  must  be  brought 
before  Caesar :  and,  lo,  God  hath  given  thee  all  them 
that  sail  with  thee." 

The  preceding  two  or  three  pages,  not  one  person  in 
ten  will  read  intelligently,  without  being  much  sur 
prised.  Such  talk  as  there  has  been,  and  such  folly  also 
as  to  the  Fathers  of  the  Church,  and  the  Founders ! 
Not  Augustine,  great,  good  man  as  he  was,  nor  any 
body  between  him  and  St.  Clement,  nor  yet  St.  Clem 
ent  himself,  ought  ever  to  have  been  accounted  as  a 
Father.  And  were  James  and  John  and  Peter  and 
Paul  truly  founders  of  the  Church,  though  so  often 
they  have  been  so  called  ?  No  founders  at  all  were 
they ;  for  they  were  but  "  earthen  vessels,"  as  Paul 


THE   CHURCH   AND   THE   SPIRIT.  491 

himself  would  have  said.  Precisely,  they  were  mere 
earthen  vessels,  through  which  the  Spirit  could  speak 
among  men,  and  act. 

The  true  Church  is  the  Church  of  the  Spirit.  And 
it  is  not  anything,  either  as  to  place  or  state  of  in 
telligence,  wherein  one  believer  can  say,  "  I  am  of 
Paul ;  and  another,  I  am  of  Apollos."  0  the  grand 
eur,  spiritually,  of  those  words  of  Paul  himself ! 
They  are  the  words  of  an  Apostle,  who  was  so  great, 
as  to  the  Spirit,  because,  partly,  of  his  ability  for  self- 
humiliation.  And  these  are  the  words,  "  Who  then 
is  Paul,  and  who  is  Apollos,  but  ministers  by  whom  ye 
believed,  even  as  the  Lord  gave  to  every  man  ?  »  I  have 
planted,  Apollos  watered,  but  God  gave  the  increase. 
So,  then,  neither  is  he  that  planteth  anything,  neither 
he  that  watereth,  but  God  that  giveth  the  increase." 

But  there  is  something  more  yet  to  be  learned  from 
the  history  of  Paul.  He  was  converted  in  a  mo 
ment.  And  what  happened  to  Saul  the  persecutor, 
is  what  is  possible,  in  some  degree,  for  everybody,  at 
this  present  day.  For  though  Jesus  does  not  now  ap 
pear  in  vision,  yet  "  because  ye  are  sons,  God  hath 
sent  forth  the  Spirit  of  his  Son  into  your  hearts." 

It  was,  as  they  were  taught  by  the  Comforter,  and 
as  they  had  things  brought  to  their  remembrance  by 
the  Holy  Ghost,  that  the  Apostles  came  at  last  to  un 
derstand  what  their  Master  had  been  and  was  become. 
It  was  by  the  Spirit  that  they  were  endowed  and  sent 
and  guided  as  Apostles. 

The  discipleship  of  Paul  began  very  differently  from 
that  of  the  other  Apostles.  Perhaps,  personally,  he 
had  never  "  known  Christ  after  the  flesh,"  and  it  is 


492  THE   CHURCH   AND   THE   SPIRIT. 

certain  that  he  assisted  at  the  martyrdom  of  Stephen. 
Paul  was  the  convert  of  Christ  in  glory.  And  in 
Paul,  Judaism  itself  was  converted,  and  became  lu 
minous  with  the  Spirit,  and  a  witness  for  Christ.  It 
was  in  spirit  that  Paul  saw  and  heard  Jesus ;  and  even 
the  gospel,  which,  he  preached,  he  had  by  the  Spirit. 
He  speaks  jof  there  being  to  be -a  judgment  of  "the 
secrets  of  men  by  Jesus  Christ  according  to  my  gospel." 
He  tells  of  a  meeting  at  Jerusalem,  with  which  even 
Peter  was  concerned,  and  says,  "  But  of  these  who 
seemed  to  be  somewhat,  (whatsoever  they  were,  it 
maketh  no  matter  to  me :  God  accepteth  no  man's  per 
son  :)  for  they  who  seemed  to  be  somewhat  in  confer 
ence  added  nothing  to  me."  And  what  even  he  told 
the  Corinthians,  as  to  the  Lord's  Supper,  was  what 
Jesus  Christ  had  told  him.  "  For  I  have  received  of 
the  Lord  that  which  also  I  delivered  unto  you,  That 
the  Lord  Jesus  the  same  night  in  which  he  was  be 
trayed  took  bread :  and  when  he  had  given  thanks,  he 
brake  it,  and  said,  Take,  eat :  this  is  my  body,  which 
is  broken  for  you  :  this  do  in  remembrance  of  me." 

That  last  evening  of  the  earthly  life  of  Jesus  was  the 
subject  of  a  revelation  to  Paul.  Does  that  seem  to  be 
a  strange,  inconceivable  thing  ?  Yet  it  is  incredible, 
altogether,  only  because  of  in  consideration.  In  com 
mon  life,  there  ar6  things  which  might  hint  psycho 
logically,  as  to  its  possibility.  And  an  electric  tele 
gram  is  no  mean  argument  as  to  its  probability. 

When  "  suddenly  there  shone  from  heaven  a  great 
light  round  about "  ;  ancl  when  a  voice  was  heard  say 
ing,  "  I  am  Jesus  of  Nazareth  whom  thou  persecutest," 
it  may  well  have  been  that  electrically,  magnetically, 


THE   CHURCH   AND   THE   SPIRIT.  493 

spiritually,  Jesus  was  revealed  in  the  mind  of  Paul, 
with  all  the  suddenness  of  a  flash,  and  the  fulness  of 
a  gospel.  For  that  voice  which  was  heard  was  the 
voice  of  Jesus  himself,  and  therefore  of  all  that  ever 
Jesus  had  been,  or  thought,  or  done,  or  endured. 

Twenty-four  years  after  his  conversion,  Paul  wrote 
his  Epistle  to  the  Galatians,  in  which  he  tells  of  what 
his  zeal  and  knowledge  had  been  as  a  Jew  ;  and  of  its 
having  pleased  God  to  reveal  his  Son  in  him ;  and  of 
the  little  intercourse  which  he  had  ever  had  with  the 
other  Apostles.  "  But  I  certify  you,  brethren,  that  the 
gospel  which  was  preached  of  me  is  not  after  man. 
For  I  neither  received  it  of  man,  neither  was  I  taught 
it,  but  by  the  revelation  of  Jesus  Christ." 

Perhaps  it  was  because  of  his  state  theologically  as 
well  as  fervently,  that  Paul  was  approachable,  for  con 
version,  in  the  way  through  which  he  was,  by  Christ 
in  glory.  And  in  the  history  of  Christianity,  and  as 
concerning  its  development,  it  is  certainly  a  very  sig 
nificant  fact,  that  the  Spirit  should  have  obtained  its 
broadest,  deepest,  and  highest  interpretation  through 
a  man  who  was  not  even  one  of  the  twelve. 

It  would  seem  to  be  of  the  essence  of  Christianity, 
that  "  Christ  is  the  head  of  the  Church,"  and  that  "  the 
head  of  Christ  is  God."  Times  and  seasons  may  not 
always  be  the  same  for  the  Church,  any  more  than  they 
are  for  the  world,  which  changes  from  day  to  day,  with 
the  course  of  time  and  the  discoveries  of  science.  And 
Jesus,  at  "  the  head  of  all  principality  and  power,"  and 
with  many  millions  of  souls  calling  themselves  by  his 
name,  in  regard  to  interest  and  administration,  may  be 
as  certainly  "  the  Shepherd  and  Bishop  of  your  souls  " 


494  THE   CHURCH   AND   THE   SPIRIT. 

as  when  he  came  within  sight  of  Stephen,  when  he 
was  about  to  be  martyred,  or  as  when  he  showed  him 
self  on  a  plane,  so  near  to  this  earth,  as  that  Paul 
could  hear  him  speak.  Miracles  are  not  for  every  age 
perhaps,  and  certainly  not  for  every  day  and  hour,  or 
else  they  would  soon  cease  to  be  "  signs  and  wonders." 

Says  St.  Paul,  "  No  man  can  say  that  Jesus  is  the 
Lord  but  by  the  Holy  Ghost."  No  doubt  this  senti 
ment  is  in  accordance  with  the  manner  of  his  own 
conversion.  But  yet  what  person  is  there  to-day, 
who  has  that  knowledge  as  to  the  Spirit,  for  which, 
reasonably,  Paul  ought  to  be  credited  ?  And  it  is 
plain,  that  we  live  by  our  affinities  spiritually,  as  surely 
as  our  bodies  last  on,  by  those  affinities,  .which  they 
have  for  air  and  food,  through  the  lungs  and  the  stomach. 
An  earnest  aspiration  is  the  opening  of  a  channel  be 
tween  man  and  God  :  and  an  act  in  the  spirit  of  Christ 
is  affinity  with  him,  wherever  he  may  be.  And  there 
are  ways  which  psychology  knows  of,  and  as  to  which 
even  the  science  of  nature  has  its  corroborations,  by 
which  it  would  seem  that  the  recognition  of  Jesus  as 
"  the  head  over  all  things  to  the  church,"  might  be  as 
simple  as  the  way  by  which  the  eye  finds  the  place 
of  the  sun  at  noonday.  It  is  true,  that  every  day  is 
not  clear  at  noon  ;  and  it  is  true,  also,  that  many  a 
man  is  living  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  who  cannot  think 
himself  that  he  is  living  so,  because  of  his  humility, 
or  because  of  his  "  philosophy  falsely  so  called." 

There  must  be  spiritual  affinity  in  some  way,  how 
ever  humble,  before  a  person  can  be  reached  by  the 
Holy  Ghost;  for  a  statue  of  stone  has  never  yet 
been  quickened.  And  Jerusalem,  which  is  from  above, 


THE   CHURCH  AND   THE   SPIRIT.  495 

has  many  ways  which  reach  down  towards  this  earth, 
but  they  do  not  open  in  every  age,  and  over  all  places, 
alike. 

The  philosophy  of  the  whole  material  universe  is 
involved  in  my  body,  and  in  its  various  organs  and 
faculties,  —  in  my  eyes,  ears,  lungs,  heart,  and  ability 
for  action.  In  the  atmosphere  of  the  sun,  there  can  be 
no  great  disturbance,  but  it  reports  itself  in  me.  And 
myself,  I  could  not  go  to  New  York,  probably,  but 
the  planet  Uranus  would  have  some  sense  of  my  jour 
ney.  And  now  is  it  not  strange  that  my  body,  my 
old  coat  of  clay,  should  be  so  wonderful ;  and  yet 
that  it  should  be  so  hard  for  me  to  believe  in  my 
spiritual  relations,  and  even  in  the  mere  possibility  of 
there  being  either  help  for  me,  or  detriment  in  the  in 
visible  ?  And  yet  there  is  nothing  more  simple  and 
natural,  if  only  I  could  think  so,  than  that  with  be 
lieving  in  the  God  and  the  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  I  should  have  the  Spirit  of  His  Son  come  in 
upon  my  soul. 

Before  a  man  can  see,  he  must  open  his  eyes  and 
look.  As  to  God,  it  is  written  that  "  without  faith  it 
is  impossible  to  please  him,"  —  faith  enough,  that  is  to 
say,  for  making  a  man  open  his  eyes  and  consider. 
"  For  he  that  cometh  to  God  must  believe  that  he  is, 
and  that  he  is  a  rewarder  of  them  that  diligently  seek 
him."  "Widely  different  as  to  spiritual  results  are  even 
these  two  states,  —  that  of  denial  as  to  spiritual  influ 
ences,  and  that  of  expectant  dependence  on  heaven, 
even  when  doubtful  as  to  whether  it  has  itself  ever  been 
met.  But,  indeed,  probably  there  is  not  a  thought 
which  I  have  of  any  weight,  but  is  the  weightier  be- 


496  THE   CHURCH   AND   THE   SPIRIT. 

cause  of  some  personage  or  law  of  the  spiritual  world. 
It  was  a  glorious  utterance  of  Christ,  which  concerned 
me,  personally,  when  arguing  from  parental  love  as 
to  its  readiness  with  children,  he  exclaimed,  "  How 
much  more  shall  your  heavenly  Father  give  the  Holy 
Spirit  to  them  that  ask  him  ? "  As  a  Christian,  I 
am  cautioned  against  incidentally  incurring  a  condi 
tion,  wherein  Satan  might  tempt  me.  On  my  repent 
ance  of  evil,  I  am  told  that  there  is  joy  among  the 
angels  of  God.  And  I  know  that  in  my  true  prayers, 
"  the  Spirit  itself  maketh  intercession "  for  me.  All 
round  my  spiritual  sphere,  I  am  open ;  and  it  is  at 
my  own  choice,  whether  or  not  I  will  be  divinely 
connected.  And  just  as  I  was  "  blest  with  faithful 
Abraham,"  so  also  was  I  involved  spiritually  in  the  his 
tory  of  the  Jewish  Church.  And  every  miracle  which 
is  recorded  in  the  New  Testament  happened  on  my 
behalf.  The  messengers  who  went  to  Peter,  at  Joppa, 
were  a  deputation  on  my  behalf,  because  of  a  vision, 
which  a  centurion  had.  And  when  Paul  was  con 
verted,  it  was  partly  because  I  was  one  of  the  Gentiles, 
for  whom  he  was  to  be  started  as  an  Apostle.  And 
those  miracles,  and  all  the  other  miracles  of  the  Scrip 
tures  are  signs,  or  sign-posts,  by  which  it  was  intended 
that  we  Christians  should  be  aided  in  placing  ourselves 
aright  as  to  mental  attitude  before  Heaven,  and  con 
formably  also  with  those  forces,  invisible  and  occult, 
which  sweep  round  the  world,  and  which  sometimes 
aid  in  shaping  the  souls  of  men,  and  sometimes  also  in 
confounding  them. 

AVhat  then  !  are  we  to  be  expecting  the  age  of  the 
Apostles  over  again,  and  those  manifestations  of  the 


THE   CHURCH   AND   THE   SPIRIT.  497 

Spirit,  by  which  it  was  accompanied  ?  No  !  for  never 
does  time  go  backward :  and  also  the  administration, 
which  is  from  above  always  is  providential  and  on 
going.  And  truly,  many  of  the  gifts,  by  which  the 
Spirit  manifested  itself  in  the  earliest  days  of  the 
Church,  ought  to-day  to  be  accounted  but  like  food  for 
"  babes  in  Christ."  But  yet  not  improbably,  they  may 
jail  reappear,  in  the  Church,  for  a  time,  when  people 
shall  begin  to  be  doubtful  about  the  rationalism  and 
.ritualism,  and  the  mere  way  of  tradition,  by  which, 
i  respectively,  to  a  great  degree,  they  have  been  living 
"  in  a  vain  show "  of  Christianity.  And  indeed  it  is 
possible,  that  the  Spirit  may  be  more  ready  with  its 
minor  manifestations  than  many  Christians  can  easily 
suppose. 

The  gifts  of  the  Spirit  are  not  all  of  them  of  the 
same  significance  :  just  as  the  faculties,  by  which  man 
is  better  than  dogs,  are  not  of  uniform  excellence. 
The  mere  working  of  miracles  does  not  argue  as  much 
power  mentally,  as  the  discerning  of  spirits.  The 
faculty  of  speaking  in  divers  kinds  of  tongues  might 
be  worthless  almost,  unless  a  person  were  present  with 
a  gift  for  the  interpretation  of  tongues.  And  even  the 
two  gifts  conjointly,  would  apparently,  by  St.  Paul, 
have  been  accounted  inferior  to  "  the  word  of  wisdom." 
Also  a  man  might  have  the  Spirit  manifest  itself 
through  him,  without  his  being,  himself,  in  the  least 
degree,  the  better  for  it ;  for  by  "  the  word  of  wisdom  " 
a  man  might  be  the  mouthpiece  of  power  from  above, 
and  yet  himself  remain  unenlightened,  though  a  wonder 
all  the  Awhile,  and  a  spectacle  to  angels  and  men. 
The  Spirit  can  do  better  than  quicken  the  nature  of 

FF 


498  THE   CHURCH  AND   THE   SPIRIT. 

man  superficially,  even  though  thereby,  for  the  time,  it 
may  be  made  to  flash  with  wonders. 

The  Spirit,  as  to  manifestation,  finds  and  takes  us 
human  beings,  as  its  instruments,  according  to  its  own 
wisdom.  And,  therefore,  among  the  twelve,  there  was 
a  Judas,  in  order  that  the  other  eleven  might  plainly 
seem  to  be  "  earthen  vessels."  The  manifestation  of 
the  Spirit,  through  individuals,  by  signs  and  wonders, 
is  but  an  indication,  on  the  surface,  of  those  powers 
by  which  men  are  all  influenced,  as  being  the  offspring 
of  God.  And  Paul,  and  Peter,  and  Ananias  of  Damas 
cus,  and  Cornelius,  a  centurion  of  the  Italian  band,  are 
instances  of  the  manner  in  which  men  are  divinely 
dealt  with,  as  individuals  and  as  nations  both. 

And  at  this  present  time,  the  Spirit  may  be  trusted 
for  some  other  manifestations  than  what  were  made 
through  Jews  and  Gentiles  eighteen  centuries  ago. 
Age  after  age,  more  and  more  susceptible  of  the 
fashioning  power  of  the  Spirit,  did  this  earth  be 
come  as  it  slowly  grew  into  shape,  and  supported 
the  creatures  that  swarmed  and  raced  about  it.  Pro 
gress  is  recognized  as  being  a  law  as  to  human 
beings,  even  though  the  way  of  it  may  be  through 
darkness  often,  and  with  convulsions  for  its  footsteps. 
And  in  the  Christian  Church  it  cannot  be  otherwise, 
than  that  with  ripening  under  heaven,  one  generation 
after  another,  souls  on  earth  should  generally  have 
become  susceptible  through  the  Spirit  to  some  diviner 
issues  than  could  well  have  been  manifested  while 
Nero  was  emperor  of  the  world,  or  than  even  at  the 
time  when  Constantine  became  a  Christian,^  and  the 
first  Christian  emperor  of  Eome.  And  if  only  a  little 


THE   CHURCH   AND   THE   SPIRIT.  499 

something  more  were  developed  as  to  its  state,  or  sup 
plied,  never  would  the  world  have  been  as  open  to  the 
Spirit  as  it  is  at  this  time,  by  predispositions  accruing 
from  politics,  and  from  science,  ftnd  from  good- will 
among  men  towards  one  another. 

In  that  region,  whence  we  mortals  are  acted  upon 
spiritually,  it  is  written  "  that  one  day  is  with  the  Lord 
as  a  thousand  years,  and  a  thousand  years  as  one 
day."  Probably  it  is  far  off  as  yet,  still,  as  St.  Paul 
would  say,  it  is  nearer  than  when  we  Christians  first 
believed,  —  that  New  Jerusalem,  which  St.  John  saw 
in  vision,  and  as  to  which  he  said,  "  I  John  saw  the 
holy  city,  New  Jerusalem,  coming  down  from  God  out 
of  heaven,  prepared  as  a  bride  adorned  for  her  hus 
band."  And  latterly  men  prophetic,  in  one  way  and 
another,  have  had  sight  of  that  New  Jerusalem  as  an 
ideal,  without  well  knowing  what  it  was,  and  have 
thereby  become  reformers  as  to  the  ways  of  this  world. 
And  poets,  in  the  quiet  of  meditation,  have  felt  their 
souls  strangely  attuned,  without  suspecting,  perhaps, 
that  it  was  by  the  music  which  is  made  by  heaven  as 
it  draws  nearer  to  earth. 

The  agonizing  doubts  which  many  Christians  are 
having,  are  but  the  throes  of  souls  in  bondage  to 
creeds,  who  are  struggling,  unconsciously,  for  "the 
glorious  liberty  of  the  children  of  God."  At  this 
time  every  sect  almost,  and  even  the  Papal,  is  more 
sharply  divided  against  itself  than  it  is  against  its 
neighbors.  And  this  is  because  of  that  quickening  of 
the  Spirit,  which  mere  traditionary  belief  cannot  en 
dure,  and  always  resists.  What  was  said  to  the  dis 
ciples,  by  Jesus  Christ,  as  to  the  end  of  the  world, 


500        THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  SPIRIT. 

involves  the  philosophy  of  the  universe,  intellectually, 
as  to  its  grander  periods.  And  wars  and  rumors  of  wars, 
of  which  there  have  latterly  been  so  many,  and  earth 
quakes  and  pestilences  in  different  places,  and  the  rise 
of  false  prophets  are  signs  of  the  times,  and  of  the 
pressure  downwards  of  power  from  on  high.  Jesus 
said  to  the  disciples,  "  I  came  not  to  send  peace  but  a 
sword,"  and  this  was  because  even  of  his  being  the 
Prince  of  Peace ;  for  there  is  nothing  which  so  exas 
perates  evil  as  the  presence  of  goodness.  Also,  of  the 
nature  of  the  times,  wherein  we  are  living,  Spiritualism 
is  evidence,  for  it  finds  that  the  veil  is  grown  thin, 
which  separates  between  us  denizens  of  nature  and 
some  of  the  dwellers  in  the  sphere  of  spirit ;  and 
it  shows  also  that  civilized  people  are,  psychically, 
more  sensitive,  at  the  present  moment,  than  probably 
they  ever  have  been  before.  The  heavens  are  being 
bowed  towards  the  earth ;  and  there  are  signs  of  the 
nearer  coming  of  the  Son  of  Man,  even  though  from  a 
quarter  where  indeed  a  thousand  years  are  as  one 
day.  It  may  be  a  long  while,  before  the  kingdoms 
of  this  world  will  become  the  suburbs  of  the  New 
Jerusalem ;  but  yet  of  that  city  of  God  as  archetypal 
there  is  more  thought  in  the  minds  of  men  to-day, 
than  ever  there  has  been  before ;  and  slowly  but 
surely  the  ways  of  this  world,  politically,  are  being 
drawn  out,  in  a  manner,  by  which  they  can  be  met, 
by  those  streets  which  reach  down,  spiritually,  from 
above. 

Already  there  is  about  us  the  atmosphere  of  "  that 
great  city,  the  holy  Jerusalem,  descending  out  of 
heaven."  And  happy  are  they  who  have  any  sense 


THE   CHURCH  AND   THE   SPIRIT.  501 

of  it !  For  thereby  they  have  become  kings  and  priests 
unto  God  and  the  Father,  and  are  clear  of  this  earth 
as  to  priestcraft  and  darkness. 

Let  those  who  are  "  taught  of  the  Lord  "  teach  what 
they  learn.  Let  those  who  have  "joy  in  the  Holy 
Ghost "  not  fear  to  show  it.  Let  those  who  are  quick 
ened  from  within  as  to  righteousness,  they  know  not 
how,  trust  that  perhaps  they  are  prophets  of  the  Spirit. 
And  let  every  one  who  catches  a  strain,  like  the  song 
which  John  heard  in  the  Spirit,  repeat  it  as  best  he 
can  for  his  fellow-creatures. 

"Great  and  marvellous  are  thy  works,  Lord  God 
Almighty ;  just  and  true  are  thy  ways,  thou  King  of 
saints." 


INDEXES. 


INDEX  TO   TEXTS  QUOTED. 


Page 

2.  Luke  xvi.  31. 

3.  2  Kings  vi.  6. 
10.  Matthew  xv.  33. 
14.  Ezekiel  xxx.  iii.  32. 
21.  James  v.  15. 

24.  Mark  vi.  5. 

33.  1  Corinthians  ii.  10. 

"  Komans  viii.  26. 

47.  1  Corinthians  xv.  44. 
"  2  Kings  vi.  17. 

48.  2  Samuel  xxiii.  2. 

75.  Acts  iii.  4. 

76.  Daniel  ii.  28. 

"  Deuteronomy  iii.  3. 

77.  Exodus  viii.  19. 
"  Mark  ix.  39. 

78.  John  vi.  30. 

79.  1  Corinthians  xii.  28. 
"  John  xx.  29. 

"  Matthew  xxiv.  24. 

"  Ephesians  vi.  12. 

80.  2  Thessalonians  ii.  9. 
"  1  John  iv.  1. 

"  Revelation  xix.  20. 

81.  1  Corinthians  xii.  10. 
"  Matthew  vii.  16. 

83.  Romans  viii.  9. 

84.  1  Corinthians  ii.  11. 

85.  1  Corinthians  xv.  45. 

91.  1  Timothy  iv.  14. 

92.  Luke  xix.  37. 
"  Luke  xix.  40. 
95.  Isaiah  vi.  5. 

"  Psalms  cxliv.  5. 

106.  John  iv.  23. 

"  John  xx.  29. 

110.  John  v.  8. 

113.  Exodus  vii.  11. 

"  1  Samuel  xxviii.  13. 

"  Matthew  xxii.  81. 

114.  2  Timothy  i.  10. 
116.  2  Corinthians  iii.  15. 
119.  Genesis  xlix.  29. 

122.  Acts  x.  10. 
"  Acts  xi.  15. 

123.  John  x.  35. 


Page 

123.  Acts  vii.  53. 

"  Hebrews  ii.  2. 

1  Timothy  vi.  15. 

"  Revelation  i.  1. 

125.  Numbers  xii,  6. 

126.  Luke  xxiv.  45. 

127.  2  Kings  vi.  17. 

130.  Luke  v.  12. 

"  1  Samuel  ix.  9. 

131.  Jeremiah  xiv.  14. 

132.  Zechariah  xiii.  2. 
"  Jeremiah  xxvi.  9. 
"  Jeremiah  ii.  8. 

"  Numbers  xxiv.  4. 

"  Judges  vi.  34. 

133.  1  Corinthians  xii.  4,  7. 
"  1  Corinthians  vi.  17. 

134.  Judges  xiv.  5. 

"  2  Corinthians  xii.  10. 

"  Judges  vi.  12. 

"  Judges  vii.  18. 

"  2  Samuel  xxiii.  2. 

135.  Luke  ii.  26. 

"  Acts  vi.  10,  15. 

"  Revelation  i.  11. 

136.  1  Kings  xiii.  26. 
"  1  Samuel  x.  10. 
"  .1  Samuel  xi.  6. 

"  1  Samuel  xvi.  14. 

"  1  Samuel  xix.  23. 

137.  1  Kings  iii.  18. 

138.  Numbers  xii.  2. 
"  Exodus  xxi.  18. 

139.  2  Samuel  xii.  7. 
"  John  xi.  51. 

"  Galatians  ii.  8,  11. 

140.  Acts  xix.  11. 

"  2  Corinthians  xii.  2. 

"  1  Corinthians  xiv.  18. 

141.  1  Corinthians  ix.  27. 
"  Galatians  i.  15. 

149.  Ephesians  vi.  12. 

"  Isaiah  xxix.  11. 

167.  Revelation  i.  10. 

"  Revelation  ii.  7. 

170.  1  John  iii.  2. 


506                         INDEX   TO   TEXTS   QUOTED. 

171.     Romans  viii.  26,  23.                      274. 

1  Corinthians  ii.  9. 

"       1  Corinthians  xv.  44. 

278. 

Matthew  x.  28. 

174.     Romans  viii.  16. 

279. 

1  Corinthians  xvi.  17. 

182.     Joel  ii.  28. 

280. 

Genesis  xxviii.  2. 

"       Revelation  i.  6. 

281. 

John  xiv.  12. 

190.     Isaiah  viii.  19. 

282. 

1  Corinthians  xv.  28. 

"       John  iii.  8. 

284. 

Romans  viii.  16. 

198.     Acts  xvi.  16. 

286. 

Matthew  xxviii.  2. 

202.     Psalms  xxxix.  3. 

288. 

2  Corinthians  v.  1. 

204.     Luke  ix.  49. 

299. 

Numbers  xi.  26. 

206.     2  Corinthians  xi.  14. 

300. 

Matthew  xi.  25. 

209.     1  Timothy  iv.  1. 

301. 

Isaiah  xlix.  15. 

217.    Romans  viii.  17. 

302. 

Job  xii.  7. 

221.     1  Corinthians  xiii.  12. 

309. 

Tobit  xii.  15. 

223.     Job  xxxii.  7. 

310. 

Daniel  x.  10. 

229.     John  xiv.  11. 

314. 

Hebrews  v.  12. 

"       Matthew  xxiv.  24. 

316. 

1  Corinthians  ii.  13. 

230.     2  Thessalonians  ii.  9. 

318. 

Numbers  xxii.  5. 

"       Revelation  v.  13. 

320. 

1  Corinthians  xii.  8. 

"       Revelation  xiii.  13. 

326. 

2  Kings  v.  11. 

"       Mark  xvi.  17. 

329. 

Romans  i.  3. 

231.     Mark  xiii.  22. 

332. 

Job  xxxiii.  14. 

41       Matthew  vii.  22. 

333. 

Numbers  xii.  6. 

232.     1  John  iv.  1. 

u 

Joel  ii.  27. 

"       1  Corinthians  xiv.  32. 

334. 

Acts  xviii.  9. 

233.     Job  xxxiii.  14. 

342. 

John  i.  14. 

234.    Matthew  xvii.  1. 

343. 

Numbers  ix.  10. 

"       Mark  vi.  4. 

" 

1  Samuel  xvi.  12. 

"       John  vii.  31. 

344. 

Jeremiah  i.  5. 

235.     Matthew  xii.  22. 

" 

Amos  vii.  14. 

"       Luke  xii.  56. 

u 

Judges  iv.  4. 

"       Matthew  x.  24. 

345. 

1  Kings  iii.  5. 

237.     Matthew  xii.  39. 

u 

1  Kings  x.  3. 

238.     John  ix.  13. 

II 

1  Kings  xvii.  10. 

"       John  xi.  48. 

u 

2  Kings  iv.  8. 

239.     John  xiv.  11. 

346. 

1  Kings  xxii.  14. 

"       Mark  vi.  2. 

347. 

Hosea  vi.  4. 

"       Mark  v.  28. 

348. 

Amos  vii.  12. 

"       Matthew  viii.  10. 

349. 

Luke  vii.  25. 

241.     Luke  x.  17. 

N 

Ezekiel  xxxiii.  30. 

242.     Acts  xiv.  9. 

350. 

Leviticus  xvii.  7. 

243.     Acts  i.  7. 

ii 

Deuteronomy  xxxii.  17. 

"       Acts  iii.  19. 

351. 

Judges  ii.  12. 

"       Matthew  xvii.  20. 

u 

Jeremiah  ii.  8. 

249.     1  Corinthians  i.  21. 

II 

2  Chronicles  xi.  15. 

250.     John  vi.  26. 

352. 

2  Kings  i.  2. 

—  »251.     Exodus  iv.  8. 

u 

1  Kings  xx.  22. 

252.     Mark  viii.  17. 

353. 

Jeremiah  vii.  18,  23. 

253.     1  Kings  xiii.  18. 

356. 

1  Samuel  ix.  5. 

254.     Acts  viii.  18. 

357. 

2  Kings  v.  3. 

259.     1  Corinthians  iii.  1. 

« 

2  Kings  vi.  12. 

261.     1  Corinthians  x.  11. 

u 

Exodus  xxxi.  2. 

263.     Revelation  xxii.  1. 

M 

1  Chronicles  xxviii.  11. 

266.     1  Corinthians  xii.  13. 

358. 

2  Samuel  xxiii.  1. 

268.     Ecclesiastes  xi.  5. 

" 

Deuteronomy  xx.  4. 

270.     John  iii.  11. 

u 

1  Kings  xx.  13. 

273.     Habakkuk  i.  16. 

359. 

2  Kings  vii.  1. 

INDEX   TO   TEXTS   QUOTED. 


507 


359. 

Exodus  xviii.  15. 

418. 

James  iv.  8. 

360. 

Numbers  xxvii.  21. 

u 

Matthew  xviii.  20. 

u 

Deuteronomy  xvii.  9. 

« 

Hebrews  xi.  6. 

« 

1  Samuel  x.'l9. 

419. 

Acts  i.  4. 

361. 

1  Kings  xix.  15. 

" 

Acts  ii.  1. 

" 

2  Kings  ix.  1. 

« 

John  xx.  22. 

u 

2  Kings  iii.  11. 

« 

Acts  v.  32. 

362. 

Zechariah  iv.  1. 

M 

Acts  x.  44. 

364. 

Isaiah  xxviii.  13. 

420. 

Genesis  xii.  2. 

372. 

Deuteronomy  iv.  7. 

41 

Matthew  vii.  11. 

376. 

Daniel  vii.  9. 

u 

Job  xxxiii.  16. 

" 

Ezekiel  i.  19. 

421. 

2  Peter  i.  21. 

389. 

Haggai  ii.  7. 

u 

John  xiv.  16. 

391. 

Galatians  iii.  8. 

M 

Matthew  x.  20. 

393. 

Isaiah  ii.  2. 

(( 

Luke  xii.  12. 

u 

Malachi  iii.  1. 

U 

Job  xxxii.  8. 

394. 

Matthew  xxiii.  37. 

422. 

Galatians  iv.  6. 

it 

Malachi  iv.  5. 

423. 

Acts  viii.  17. 

u 

John  i.  32. 

426. 

Matthew  xvii.  10. 

395. 

Galatians  iv.  5. 

" 

2  Kings  ii.  15. 

397. 

Mark  i.  12. 

427. 

Luke  i.  17. 

M 

Ezekiel  iii.  14. 

u 

Galatians  iii.  19. 

U 

Daniel  viii.  27. 

(1 

Galatians  iii.  8. 

398. 

Luke  xxii.  42. 

(( 

Revelation  xxi.  3. 

402. 

Hebrews  x.  7. 

429. 

1  Corinthians  iii.  16. 

403. 

Genesis  xxxi.  13. 

430. 

Mark  i.  13. 

u 

Exodus  iii.  2. 

u 

Matthew  xi.  11. 

404. 

Exodus  xiii.  21. 

431. 

John  i.  32. 

u 

Numbers  xiv.  14. 

u 

Matthew  xi.  2. 

u 

Exodus  xxiii.  20. 

(( 

Matthew  xi.  4. 

405. 

Isaiah  Ixiii.  8. 

(t 

Luke  iv.  16. 

n 

Malachi  iii.  1. 

432. 

Luke  iv.  29. 

406. 

Revelation  i.  4. 

433. 

John  iii.  34. 

407. 

1  John  iv.  1. 

u 

John  v.  20. 

" 

1  Corinthians  xiv.  29. 

u 

Mark  xiii.  11. 

M 

1  Corinthians  xii.  10. 

u 

Matthew  x.  20. 

408. 

1  Corinthians  xiv.  18. 

u 

Luke  ii.  25. 

a 

1  Corinthians  xiii.  1. 

434. 

Romans  viii.  16. 

409. 

John  iii.  34. 

(i 

1  John  y.  6. 

u 

John  i.  51. 

435. 

John  iii.  2. 

u 

Genesis  xxviii.  12. 

u 

John  viii.  48. 

410. 

Malachi  iv.  5. 

436. 

Hebrews  vii.  15. 

" 

Matthew  xi.  9. 

441. 

John  xv.  27. 

411. 

Luke  ix.  28. 

John  xiv.  26. 

u 

John  xii.  28. 

443. 

Isaiah  xiv.  10. 

412. 

1  Peter  i.  11. 

445. 

Micah  vii.  4. 

M 

Matthew  xvii.  9. 

u 

Malachi  iv.  5. 

U 

Acts  x.  3. 

u 

Matthew  xvi.  14. 

U 

Acts  x.  10. 

u 

Matthew  xvii.  12. 

(( 

Daniel  x.  9. 

446. 

Luke  ii.  34. 

413. 

Genesis  xv.  12. 

u 

Luke  xix.  42. 

" 

Acts  xxii.  14. 

447. 

Matthew  xxiii.  35. 

•' 

Acts  xxii.  17. 

448. 

Luke  i.  88. 

414. 

2  Corinthians  xii.  2. 

449. 

Matthew  xiii.  14. 

416. 

Genesis  xlix.  1. 

450. 

John  xx.  26. 

M 

1  Samuel  iii.  1. 

452. 

Hebrews  i.  6. 

417. 

Numbers  xii.  6. 

455. 

John  xii.  32. 

508 


INDEX   TO   TEXTS   QUOTED. 


455. 

Luke  ix.  7. 

478. 

Luke  xxiv.  44. 

457. 

Ephesians  i.  10. 

u 

Luke  xxiv.  49. 

458. 

Matthew  vi.  22. 

479. 

Acts  ii.  36. 

459. 

Matthew  xxvii.  19. 

480. 

Acts  ix.  3. 

460. 

John  xi.  51. 

u 

Acts  ix.  15. 

u 

Luke  xxiii.  43. 

481. 

Acts  x.  15. 

u 

John  xx.  17. 

u 

Acts  x.  45. 

M 

1  Peter  iii.  19. 

484. 

Acts  xxviii.  30. 

u 

Matthew  xxvii.  45. 

u 

Ephesians  ii.  18. 

461. 

Luke  xxiii.  45. 

485. 

1  Corinthians  i.  28. 

462. 

Matthew  xxvii.  50. 

u 

Acts  i.  8. 

u 

Hebrews  ix.  3. 

u 

Acts  ii.  4. 

463. 

1  Corinthians  xv.  35. 

486. 

Mark  xiii.  11. 

464. 

Hebrews  i.  3. 

14 

Acts  iv.  7. 

u 

Matthew  xxvii  63. 

U 

Acts  iv.  31. 

465. 

Psalms  xvi.  10. 

M 

Acts  xii.  7. 

" 

John  xix.  40. 

« 

Acts  viii.  26. 

u 

Matthew  xxviii.  2. 

.487. 

Galatians  i.  15. 

466. 

Acts  ii.  2. 

M 

Acts  xiii.  2. 

(i 

Acts  xvi.  25. 

488. 

Acts  xvi.  6. 

" 

Daniel  x.  7. 

" 

Acts  xvi.  7. 

467. 

1  Peter  iii.  18. 

M 

Acts  xvi.  9. 

u 

Ecclesiasticus  xlviii.  13. 

" 

Acts  xviii.  9. 

^_« 
468. 

2  Kings  xiii.  21. 
Genesis  v.  24. 

489. 

u 

Acts  xx.  22. 
Acts  xxi.  20. 

U 

Deuteronomy  xxxiv.  6. 

M 

Actsxxii.  17. 

469. 

John  xx.  17. 

490. 

Acts  xxiii.  10. 

u 

John  xx.  27. 

M 

Acts  xxvii.  23. 

" 

Ephesians  iv.  10. 

491. 

1  Corinthians  iii.  5. 

" 

Luke  xxiv.  39. 

492. 

Komans  ii.  16. 

470. 

Acts  i.  9. 

" 

Galatians  ii.  6. 

u 

Acts  vi.  15. 

" 

1  Corinthians  xi.  23. 

u 

Acts  vii.  55. 

493. 

Galatians  i.  11. 

u 

2  Timothy  i.  10. 

u 

1  Corinthians  xi.  3. 

471. 

1  Corinthians  xv.  55. 

494. 

1  Corinthians  xii.  3. 

M 

Matthew  vii.  6. 

495. 

Hebrews  xi.  6. 

472. 

Luke  ii.  52. 

496. 

Luke  xi.  13. 

473. 

1  Corinthians  xv.  44. 

499. 

Revelation  xxi.  2. 

" 

Psalms  cxliv.  3. 

u 

Romans  viii.  21. 

474. 

Mark  xvi.  19. 

600. 

Matthew  x.  34. 

u 

John  iii.  12. 

" 

Revelation  xxi.  10. 

475. 

Galatians  iii.  24. 

501. 

Revelation  xv.  8. 

477. 

1  Corinthians  xv.  57. 

INDEX   OF   SUBJECTS. 


Amos  and  the  priest,  348. 

Angel  of  the  covenant.  463. 
"        "       presence,  405. 

Angels,  in  the  Scriptures,  120. 
"       and  the  Jewish  law,  373. 
"        and  God,  403. 

Anthropomorphism,  370. 

Anti-supernaturalism,  3,  24,  91, 168, 
293,  296,  332,  364,  385,  390, 
402,  422,  434,  437,  442.  459, 
471,  479,  483. 

Aquinas,  St.  Thomas,  177. 

Arago,  D.  F.  J.,  51. 

Atheism,  a  word  as  to,  307. 

Augustine,  St.,  212. 

Baker,  Rachel,  99. 

Barclay,  Robert,  16. 

Baxter,  Richard,  23,  82,  120. 

Belief,  intelligent,  365. 

Bible,  the,  and  mistranslations,  118. 

Blind  leaders  of  the  blind,  40,  301, 

305,  312,  336. 
Blindness,  spiritual,  149. 

"  "          from      scholar 

ship,  104. 

"  "        from  science,  40. 

Bohme,  Jacob,  13. 
Bonaventura,  St.,  192. 
Bridget,  St.,  99. 
Buchner,  Dr.,  63,  297. 

Cassaubon,  Isaac,  159. 

Catholic  and  Protestant,  98, 116, 119, 

201,  225,  297,  313. 
Charity  as  a  means  to  knowledge, 

221. 

China  praised,  214. 
Christianity,  the  beginning  of,  391. 

the  essence  of,  493. 
"  the  meaning  of,  483. 

Chrysostom,  St.  John,  87. 
Church,  the,  and  the  Spirit,  28,  478. 

''        the  true,  491. 
Church-going,  338,  418. 
Cicero,  144,  331. 


Clairvoyance,  174,  271,  297. 
Clement,  the  Recognitions  of,  186. 
Commonwealth  of  England,  247. 
Confucius,  424. 

Cudworth,  Ralph,  168,  186,  245. 
Cupertino,  St.  Joseph  of,  100. 

Demoniacs,  116. 

"  modern,  91. 

Dream,  that  of  Pilate's  wife,  459. 
Dreaming,  the  natural  oracle,  325, 

331,  337. 
Dreams  and  the  Scriptures,  332. 

"       two,  179. 
Dupotet,  the  Baron,  424. 

Ecstatics,  152. 

"         and  witchcraft,  159. 
Endor,  the  woman  of,  113. 

Faith,  243,  474,  495. 
Farmer  Hugh,  48,  73,  192. 
Ficinus  Marsilius,  61. 
Forum,  the  Roman,  148. 
Fox,  George,  13,  202,  219. 
Franklin,  Benjamin,  129. 
Froude.  J.  A.,  57. 
Fulness  of  the  time,  456. 

Gibbon,  E.,  147. 

God,  as  the  Creator,  43. 

and  his  angels,  120. 

and  man,  278,  281,  341,  418, 

and  nature,  49,  302,  373. 

and  the  peculiar  people,  377. 

and  the  soul,  301. 

the  Church  of,  484. 
Gods,  false,  112. 
Goethe,  307. 
Greatrex,  99,  297. 

Hades,  115. 

Heathenism  and  Christianity,  147, 

316. 

Herbert,  Lord  of  Cherbury,  40. 
Hitchcock,  E.  A.,  54. 


510 


INDEX   OF   SUBJECTS. 


Homer,  331. 

Honesty  the  best  policy,  24,  72. 

Immortality  and  Judaism,  114. 

"  "     Paganism,  113. 

Inspiration,  the  nature  of,  319. 

"  universality  of,  76,  317, 

327. 


Je 


us,  329. 


variously  apprehended,  435. 

and  the  'Spirit,  397,  430. 

and  the  crucifixion,  460. 

and  the  resurrection,  452,  478. 

and  the  Jews,  446. 
Jews,  the,  as  a  peculiar  people,  377. 
"      at  the  coming  of  Christ,  382. 
"      and  Plato,  369. 
John,  the  Gospel  of,  441. 
Josephus,  387. 
Judaism  and  mankind,  392. 

Knowledge  and  ignorance,  70. 

Lachish,  Simeon  Ben..  83. 
Lateau,  Louise,  152. 
Levi,  Rabbi  Ben,  116. 
Lightfoot,  John,  78,  256,  406. 
Limborch,  Philip  a,  122. 
Logic  and  religion,  267. 
Loyola  Ignatius,  192. 
Lupton  Arthur.  150. 
Luther  Martin,  7,  227. 

Magnetism,  323,  424. 
Maimonides,  Moses,  120,  236,  408. 
Man  and  God,  495. 
"     and  history,  483. 
"     historically  bound,  107,  453. 
Man  as  a  spirit,  37, 130, 170,  220,  262, 
268,  278,  282,  314,  324,  336, 
340,  401,  476. 

"     and  the  Spirit,  400,  428,  482. 
'     open  to  the  Spirit,  437,  442. 
"    born  of  the  universe,  314,  396, 

495. 

"     spiritually  insphered.  423. 
Martyr,  Justin,  122. 
Marvels  of  the  present  day,  162. 
Men  and  monkeys,  108. 
Mesmerism,  156,'  297,  324,  326. 
Mill,  James,  69,  451. 
Miracle,  as  a  Scriptural  word,  227. 
Miracles,  1,  8,22,  38. 

ignorance  as  to,  2,  81,  93. 
"         various  definitions  of,  224. 
"         defined,  248. 
"         and  science,  74,  120,  264. 


Miracles,  and  human  nature,  285. 
"         and  pneumatology,  309. 
"         and  the  creative  spirit,  264. 
"         and  the  Spirit,  283. 

as  signs,  245,  248,  280.  283. 
"         and    speculative    science, 

308. 

"         and  nature,  42. 
"         and  the  material  universe, 

290. 
"         and  the  spiritual  universe, 

290. 

"         and  doctrine,  71,  75,  235. 
"         and  character,  139,  231. 
"         and    the   Scriptures,   229, 

237. 
"         and  their  significance,  75, 

238,  251,  279,  449. 
"         the  light  of,  260. 
"         religiously  important,  292. 
"         and  the  believing  spirit,  90. 
"         ways  of  believing  in,  104. 
"         and  Christian  belief,  36. 

and  belief,  22, 106, 239. 278. 
"         not    unnatural,   282,    286, 

324,  331. 
"         why  not   more    common, 

93,  295,  494. 
"          conditional,  240. 
"         and  all  time,  496. 
"         and  the  present  day,  162, 

260,  449. 

"         not  for  everybody,  164. 
"         modern,  162,  298,  324.  331. 
"         as  witnessed  by  seraphs, 

46. 

"         and  a  spiritual  world,  95. 
"         like  prophecies,  280. 
More,  Henry,  168,  201. 
Mori,  Maria'.  153. 

Moses  hearing  the  Lord  command, 
343. 

Nature,  the  laws  of,  46,  73,  306. 

"  "         a  figure  of  speech, 

49,  74. 

Neander,  Augustus,  20,  197,  399. 
Neri,  St.  Philip,  298. 
Newman,  161. 
Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  44,  54,  247. 

Oracles,  ancient,  334. 
Origen,  319. 
Owen.  John,  82. 

Palestine  at  the  birth  of  Jesus,  382. 
Paul,  St.,  140,  413,  487. 


INDEX   OF  SUBJECTS. 


511 


Pausanias,  145. 

Pentecost,  482. 

Philip  the  Apostle,  486. 

Pius  the  Seventh,  193. 

Plato,  164,  316,  319,  332,  387. 

Plotinus,  13,  26,  158,  212,  425. 

Pneumatology  and  the   Scriptures, 

110. 

"  illustrated,  16,  89,  95, 

127, 173,  206,  233,  243,  265, 
269,  276,  288,  309,  321,  324, 
367,  377,  385,  396,  423,  438, 
454,  455,  468,  493. 
Powell,  Baden,  56. 
Progress,  law  of,  366. 
Prophecy,  383,  389,  408. 

"          and  human  nature,  316. 
Prophets,  who  were,  94,  131,  343. 
"         how  commissioned,  343. 
"          social  position  of,  346. 
"          and  priests,  347. 
"          false,  112,  232.  351. 
Prospects,  spiritual,  243, 270, 333,497. 
Pusey,  E.  B.,  155. 

Receptiveness,  spiritual,  329. 
Renan,  J.  E.,  4,  85,  94. 
Resurrection  of  Jesus,  286,  252. 
Revelation,  and  primitive  germ  as 

to,  333. 
"         made     through,     angels, 

120. 

"        and  neAv  truths,  316. 
"         a  primal  truth  as  to,  376. 
"         the  philosophy  of,  44, 123, 
201,  218,  272,  290,  343, 
373,  403,  417,  425,  430, 
458. 

Revivals,  religious,  202,  220. 
Rome,  ancient,  147. 

Saul  and  Samuel,  136. 
Schiller,  J.  C.  F.,  171. 
Science  and  Miracles,  38,  120,  271, 
306,  402. 

"       and  its  limitations,  200,  291, 
301. 

"      and  human  nature,  282. 

"      and  spirit,  213,  268, 283, 475. 

"      and  religion,  283,  301,  337, 
428. 

"      obsolete  forms  of,  177. 

"       and  electricity,  62. 
Scott,  Dr.  Walter,  194. 
Sheol  or  Hades,  115. 
Shrewsbury,  the  Earl  of,  153,  159. 
Smith,  John,  440. 


Souls  differ,  320. 
Spirit,  the,  30,  400. 

"  "  variously  described,  420. 
"  "  and  the'  Old  Testament, 

340. 

"  "  and  the  Scriptures,  450. 
"  "  as  a  theocracy,  360,  392. 
"  "  and  the  prophets  thereof, 

131. 

"         "     and  its  course,  479. 
"         "     and  its  effects,  356. 
"         "     in  action,  27. 
"        "  •  and  its  instruments,  347, 

498. 
"        "    various     manifestations 

of,  320,  420,  489. 
"         "     gifts  of,  320,  496. 
"         "     experiences  of,  321,  330. 
"         "     and  its  teaching,  319. 
"         "     as  inspiration,  356,  379. 
"         "     and  receptiveness,  320. 
"         "     arid  conviction,  474. 
"        "    as    between    man    and 

God,  494. 

"        "     and  the  soul,  322,  392. 
"         "     and  all  men,  379. 
"         "     men  differenced  by,  443. 
"         "     and  human  individual 
ity,  354,  376. 
"        "    grieving,  330. 
"         "     living  by,  182,  415. 
"         "     being  in,  413. 
"         "     and  miracles,  283. 
"         "     and  logic,  319. 
"        "     the      original     of     the 

church,  484. 

"        "     and  the  Future,  498. 
Spirit,  12,  18,  30,  40. 
"      and  matter,  166. 
"      and  science,  183. 
"      descent  by,  380. 
"      as  a  word  degraded,  103,  315. 
Spirits  and  inspiration,  407. 
"      familiar,  113. 
"      unclean,  117,  175,  198,  293, 

296,  406,  446. 
Spiritual  states,  166. 

"        world  about  us,  182. 
Spiritualism,  63,  184,  203,  299,  369, 

425,  500. 
"  and  the  Old  Testament, 

369. 

and  the  Scriptures,  209. 
the  phenomena  of,  160, 

206,  211. 

an  estimate  of,  208,  216, 
"  significance  of,  212, 218. 


512 


INDEX   OF   SUBJECTS. 


Spirit-rappings,  199,  203,  217. 

"  and  science,  61. 

"  and   Baden  Powell, 

63. 

Stanley,  Arthur  P.,  76. 
Stigmata,  on  the,  158. 
Stilling,  Heinrich,  88. 
Strauss,  D.  T.,  10,  53. 
Suetonius,  387. 
Swedenborg,  Emmanuel,  89. 

Tacitus,  387. 

Telegraph,  electric,  271,  483. 

Tertullian,  214. 

Testament,  the  Old,  340,  368. 

"  "       as  a  history  of 

the  Spirit,  363. 

"  "       its      own      evi 

dence,  368. 
"  "       and    the    New, 

311,  375,  382. 
Theocracy,  the    Jewish,    342,   352, 

392,  446. 

Theology,  modern,  22,   43,  92,  96, 
^112,  124,  175,  191,  193,  197, 
200,  208,  231,  255,  293,  300, 
305,  315,  339,  369,  444. 
Theology,  modern,  state  of,  198. 
"     '          "        externality     of, 
315. 


Theology,  modern,  weakness  of,  96, 

191. 
"  "        and  superstition, 

162,  208. 

"         confounded      by 
Spiritualism,  190. 
Time,  fulness  of  the,  388,  395,  456. 

"       spirit  of  the,  265. 
Tongues,  the  gift  of,  408. 
Trance,  the  state  of,  413. 
Transfiguration,  the,  411,  455. 

"  "     was  in  vision, 

412. 

Unbelief,  modern,  2,  16,  19,  23,  36. 
Universe,  the,  not  a  machine,  55. 

"  "     and  man,  264. 

"  "    as  to  men  and  spirits, 

294. 

"  "     as  to  miracles,  280. 

Vespasian,  447. 
Virgil.  389. 

Vision,  the  state  of,  122,  310,  413. 
"       instances  of,  479. 

Warning  from  a  bird,  182. 
Wesley,  John,  184. 
Word  of  the  Lord,  124,  312,  342,  367, 
378,  400. 


THE    END. 


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